The Life of the Bee 
104 
I have said that even the policy of the 
bees is probably subject to change. This 
point is the obscurest of all, and the most 
dificult to verify. I shall not dwell on 
their various methods of treating the queens, 
or on the laws as to swarming, that are pecu- 
liar to the inhabitants of every hive, and 
apparently transmitted from generation to 
generation, &c.; but, by the side of these 
facts which are not sufficiently established, 
are others so precise and unvarying as to 
prove that the same degree of political 
civilisation has not been attained by all races 
of the domestic bee, and that, among some 
of them, the public spirit still is groping 
its way, seeking, perhaps, another solution 
of the royal problem. The Syrian bee, for 
instance, habitually rears 120 queens, and 
often more, whereas our Apis mellifica will 
rear ten or twelve at most. Cheshire tells 
of a Syrian hive, in no way abnormal, where 
120 dead queen-mothers were found, and go 
living, unmolested queens. This may be 
310 
