THE QUEEN OR MOTHER BEE. 11 
the combs, the bees clearing a passage on her approach, 
their heads turned towards her, and, by repeatedly 
touching her with their antenne, showing what 
appears to be a marked attachment—a favour she is 
occasionally seen to return. Indeed, in some well- 
authenticated instances, the signs of affection have 
been continued even after her death. The precise 
character of this feeling is now, however, regarded in 
a very different light from what it formerly was, for it 
is plainly the mere loyalty of a subject rather than 
the personal love of a child. But even this view is 
only partially the correct one, and to fully realise its 
nature we must take into account the intense patriotic 
spinit of the bees; they know that the queen is essen- 
tial to the prosperity of the commonwealth, and as 
such, and not as caring a straw or a crumb of wax 
about her individual person, they cherish her devo- 
tedly and show their lives to be bound up in hers. 
The one great object of her existence being the 
perpetuation of the species, her majesty seems 
intent on nothing more, during her royal pro- 
gresses through the hive, than peeping into the cells 
as she passes them, ever and anon selecting one, 
within which she proceeds to insert her abdomen, 
and to deposit at the bottom an egg. These eggs 
are about the size of those produced by a butter- 
fly, but they are more elongated, and of a bluish- 
white colour. So prolific are some queens that I 
have sometimes witnessed an extraordinary waste 
of eggs when, as the combs have become in great 
part filled with brood or honey, she finds a difficulty 
in meeting with a sufficiency of unoccupied cells. 
