takes place, bee-keepers make ready fresh hives for the malcon* 

 tents, and say the bees are " swarming." 



Sometimes, however, and by an unlucky coincidence, two 

 princesses will emei'ge from their embryo state at the same hour. 

 On such occasions the malicious old queen, knowing the pretty 

 quarrel there will presently ensue, takes herself off with her 

 friends, and leaves her children to settle their differences how 

 they please. There is only one way of settling them. Such a 

 thing as two queens in one hive was never yet known ; they are 

 equally respected to the hiveites ; but what they want is a queen 

 in place of her who has departed ; either will do ; let them 

 settle it between them. The princesses must fight for it. 



While the inhabitants of the hive stand aside, the rival 

 queens advance, and gripping each other with their jaws com- 

 mence the deadly struggle ; finally the luckier one perceives a 

 fihance for a thrust ; it is given ; of the two royal bees but one 

 is left alive, and while the multitude hail the assassin as their 

 queen and pay her homage, the body of her rival is thrown 

 out. If this account be not strictly and exactly true, the 

 responsibility rests with M. Yogt, the famous German natu- 

 ralist, and not with me. 



It has been shown that two queens cannot reign in the same 

 hive; that law is, however, not more imperative than that 

 without a queen at all the hive cannot exist. This law would 

 seem to involve serious dilemmas. Queen bees, like the com- 

 monest of their subjects, are but mortal, are as Uable to fatal 

 accident, and when they venture abroad may as likely never 

 return. Such things do happen, and, worse than all, when 

 there is not a single royal egg-cell tenanted. But by a wise 

 provision of nature the bereaved bees are equal to the emer- 

 gency. They make a queen out of a workmg bee. 



Ignorant of bee-nature, the reader may see little reason for 

 italicising this last sentence. " What can be easier ? " he may 

 say ; " the same sort of thing has been done by ourselves, or at 

 least by our iFrench neighbours, and more than once. Suppose 

 an emperor be removed from his throne by death to-day, and 

 the multitude be mad enough to place on the throne the first 

 cobbler or bargeman they may meet, you have the vacant 

 throne at least filled, though perhaps not efficiently." 



Gently, dear reader. A plebeian queen can no more be tole- 

 rated in bee-land than an empty throne, and though a bee 

 might be ever so well qualified to fill the throne, unless she were 

 of the orthodox sliape, death would be th*" 'i^^aity of the 



