THE PEEFEOT SOCIALISM 65 



the earlier writers. Lubbock and McCook, as well as 

 apiarists, have shown that the devotion to the queen is 

 a matter of business interests to the colony. Not her 

 royal body do they revere but her royal prerogative of 

 motherhood. " What does " is the criterion of social- 

 ists; "what is" counts for nothing. Ants show a 

 great deal of devotion to a dead queen, giving her at- 

 tention for days or even weeks after her death. While 

 the queen bee moves about freely in the hive, the queen 

 ant has a bodyguard which always accompanies her 

 and often restricts her movements. 



Beekeepers often have occasion to introduce new queens 

 into hives that are queenless. This is a delicate under- 

 taking, and many expedients are resorted to in order to 

 accomplish it successfully. It is interesting to note the 

 manner in which the bees refuse to accept a strange queen. 

 They " ball " her, as it is called ; i.e. a great number of 

 workers cluster close around her, making a compact 

 ball about the size of an egg, and thus delicately 

 smother her royal highness with much attention. Get- 

 ting rid of unwelcome royalty by the process of smother- 

 ing is not unknown in our own annals. This method 

 is probably adopted by bees through their instinct of 

 never inflicting wounds upon an active queen ; it is to 

 be noted that if a queen bee is disabled, she is killed by 

 ordinary methods and pitched out of the hive, thus 



