THE SWARM 



mate sovereign or be she the stranger, she 

 will at once be seized and lodged in the 

 living prison until such time as she mani- 

 fest once more the desire to attack her 

 foe. It is right to add, however, that the 

 numerous experiments that have been 

 made on this subject have almost invari- 

 ably resulted in the victory of the reign- 

 ing queen, owing perhaps to the extra 

 courage and ardour she deri\-es from the 

 knowledge that she is at home, v/ith her 

 subjects around her, or to the fact that 

 the bees, however impanial v/hile the 

 fight is in progress, may possibly display 

 some favouritism in their manner of im- 

 prisoning the rivals : for their mother 

 would seem scarcely to suiier from the 

 contlnement, v/hereas the stranger almost 



[82] 



