282 LOSS 0? THE QDBEN. 



misfortune, any more than all unhappy husbands or wives 

 see fit to proclaim the full extent of their domestic wretched- 

 ness : there is a vast amount of seeming even in the little 

 world of the bee-hive. One great advantage in my mode of 

 construction is, that I am never obliged to leave anything to 

 vague conjecture ; but I can, in a fevif moments, open the 

 interior, and know precisely what is the real condition of 

 the bees. 



On one occasion I found that a colony which had been 

 queenless for a considerable lime, utterly refused to raise 

 another, and even devoured all the eggs which were given 

 to them for that purpose ! This colony was afterwards sup- 

 plied with an unimpregnated queen, but they refused to ac- 

 cept of her, and attempted at once to smother her to death. 

 I then gave them a fertile queen, but she met with no belter 

 treatment. Facts of a similar kind have been noticed by 

 other observers : thus it seems that bees may not only be- 

 come reconciled, as it were, to living without a mother, but 

 may pass into such an unnatural state as not only to decline 

 providing themselves with another, but actually to refuse 

 one by whose agency they might be rescued from impending 

 ruin ! Before expressing too much astonishment at such 

 foolish conduct, let us seriously inquire if it has not often an 

 e.\act parallel in our obstinate rejection of the provisions 

 which God has made in the Gospel for our moral and religious 

 welfare. 



If a colony which refuses to rear another queen, has a 

 range of comb given to it, containing maturing brood, these 

 poor motherless innocents, as soon as they are able to work, 

 perceive their loss, and will proceed at once, if they have 

 the means, to supply it ! They have not yet grown so hard- 

 ened by habit to unnatural and ruinous courses, as not to feel 

 that something absolutely indispensable to their safety is 

 wanting in their hive. 



