94 THE HONEY-BEE. 



parts by metal network, sufficiently fine to prevent 

 the passage of the bees, but with meshes wide enough 

 to allow the antennae to be passed through. At first, 

 by a pair of such gratings at a little distance apart, 

 he separated the two portions, so that no communi- 

 cation whatever could take place between them. 

 Very soon that half from which the queen was 

 excluded showed signs of commotion and distress, 

 and even began to prepare queen-cells, to supply 

 themselves with a new sovereign ; but when, by the 

 removal of one grating, Huber allowed the feelers to 

 be used to convey intelligence between the hees on 

 opposite sides of the remaining division, he saw 

 the insects by hundreds making inquiries as to what 

 had happened. Then the queen was observed on 

 the grating, and the bees being assured, by crossing 

 antennae with her, that their mother was still in the 

 hive, though shut off from free access to one set of 

 her subjects, they all quieted down, left off making 

 the royal cells, and resumed their various avocations. 



Huber tried the further experiment of depriving 

 two queens of their antennae, and introducing both 

 into the same hive. The population did not seem 

 able to recognise their own sovereign from the 

 stranger, and both were let alone; but, directly he 

 put in a third queen, unmutilated in these organs, 

 the workers fell upon her, and slaughtered her. 



The antennseless queens lost all purpose, laid eggs 

 at random, and wandered about the hives as if they 

 had "lost their heads." 



Another very curious fact is, that if a worker is 

 deprived of her feelers, and then allowed to fly, she 

 becomes incapable of recognising her hive, even 



