24 THE HONEY-BEE. 



Should the loss of the queen take place when 

 there is no brood-comb in the hive, from the season 

 of the year, or from other circumstances, such as the 

 cessation of egg-laying, the bees often manifest a 

 series of almost frantic efforts to repair their loss. 

 Sometimes they will try to develop a female from 

 drone eggs. They have been known even to take a 

 lump of pollen and surround it with a queen cell, in 

 the absurd hope of getting a monarch so. It some- 

 times happens that one of the workers develops the 

 power of laying eggs, all of which turn to drones — 

 a marvellous fact in parthenogenesis — and the workers 

 treat some of these to a royal abode and royal jelly, 

 in the futile hope of thus raising a sovereign. In 

 fact, as has been wittily but truly said, "when bees 

 have lost their queen they lose their head!' This 

 close connection of queen and people is reciprocal, 

 for the sovereign who is forcibly separated from her 

 ubjects refuses food, pines away, and speedily dies. 

 It is only in very rare instances (such as those we 

 have mentioned when speaking of the introduction 

 of a stranger-queen) that the workers attack and 

 kill royalty. Queens, on the other hand, are never 

 known to use their stings against their subjects. 

 They reserve them for combats with their equals, 

 thus realising the salutary arrangement, which might 

 have such practically important political conse- 

 quences if adopted in human affairs, "Let those 

 who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight." 



The queen, though developed more rapidly than 

 the drones and the workers, enjoys a much longer 

 life than her subjects. In some instances this period 

 has been known to extend to five or even six years ■ 



