THE QUEEN OR MOTHER BEE. 13 
portion of the workers to supply her with honey, as 
well as with pollen prepared like that used in pre- 
paration of the royal jelly. She has no objection 
however to sucking honey direct from the cells upon 
occasion. 
We often read of the combats between rival 
queens when there happens to be two in a hive, 
but though such have in numberless cases been 
witnessed, it is now established that there are 
great numbers of exceptions to the rule, if indeed 
it can any longer be considered the rule at all. 
Very commonly the new-comer is at once destroyed 
by the workers, while instances are anything but 
rare in which the two are permitted to reign together. 
In the case of Italian bees it is stated by Von 
Hruschka that the latter course is actually the law as 
soon as the elder queen has entered her third year. 
But on the other hand the rivals have been often seen 
to grapple each other in mortal combat till one 
of them is pierced by the sting of the other—this 
being the only occasion in which a queen will 
ordinarily make use of her sting. Similarly it is 
known that a princess on first coming from her 
cradle-cell, will rush straightway to tear open the 
other royal cells and destroy her rivals before they 
issue forth. 
The following points should be noticed in cor- 
rection of the statements found in older works: the 
rule of the queen in the hive is anything but 
absolute, the workers very often entirely controlling 
her; the personal love which these are said to 
evince for her is really a mere matter of business 
