168 THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
bee-hive falls to the lot of the worker-bees, the 
queen-mother is second to none in industry. At this 
time of year she goes about her task with a dogged 
patience and assiduity pathetic to witness. She may 
have to supply from two thousand to three thousand 
brood-cells with eggs in the course of a single day, 
and she is for ever wandering through the crowded 
corridors of the hive looking for empty cradles. 
The old bee-masters believed that the queen was 
always accompanied in these unending promenades 
by exactly a dozen bees, whom they called the 
Twelve Apostles. It is true that whenever the 
queen stops in ‘her march she is immediately 
surrounded by a number of bees, who form them- 
selves into a ring, keeping their heads ceremoniously 
towards her. But close observation reveals the 
fact that the queen-bee is never followed about by a 
permanent retinue. When she moves to go on, the 
ring breaks and disperses before her; but the bees 
who gather round her on her next halt are those who 
happen to occupy the space of comb she has then 
reached. 
The truth seems to be that she is passed from 
‘“‘ hand to hand ’’ over the combs of the brood-nest, 
and is stopped wherever a cell requires replenishing. 
Each bee that she encounters on her path turns 
front and touches her gently with her antenne. 
The queen constantly returns these salutes as she 
moves, and it looks exactly as if she were going the 
rounds of her domain and collecting information. 
Often she is stopped by half a dozen bees in a solid 
phalanx, and carefully headed off in a new direction. 
She looks into every cell as she goes, and when she 
has lowered her body into a cell, the Apostles 
