The Life of the Bee 
that the queens, in their passes, present 
their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in 
such a fashion that the drawing of the 
sting would prove mutually fatal; one 
might almost believe that, even as a god 
or goddess was wont to interpose in the 
combats of the Iliad, so a god or a god- 
dess, the divinity of the race, perhaps, 
interposes here; and the two warriors, 
stricken with simultaneous terror, divide 
and fly, to meet shortly after and separate 
again should the double disaster once more 
menace the future of their people; till at 
last one of them shall succeed in surprising 
her clumsier or less wary rival, and in 
killing her without risk to herself. For 
the law of the race has called for one 
sacrifice only. 
[71] 
The cradles having thus been destroyed 
and the rivals all slain, the young queen is 
256 
