144 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



when they have put by what they consider a 

 sufficiency of stores, and an idle spirit spreads 

 visibly among them. In a few cases there is a 

 distinct moral twist in the national character, and 

 the bees take to robbing their neighbours' larders 

 instead of working to furnish their own. 



Permanent queenlessness is a calamity which 

 affects different colonies in different ways. With 

 some it means complete despair, a cessation of all 

 enterprise or interest in life. Work is stopped ; 

 the guards are withdrawn from the gate ; the 

 community seems to give up in a body, and to 

 await extinction with no more hope than a batch 

 of criminals in the condemned cell. But with 

 others the common disaster is but a signal for 

 a universal quickening of wits, a furbishing-up of 

 all possible and impossible resources. To bees of 

 this temper we should look for such episodes as 

 the egg-purloining to supply a queen-cell, which 

 has been already dealt with. But for supreme in- 

 genuity, even though it be the forlornest of forlorn 

 hopes, perhaps there is nothing to equal a device 

 sometimes resorted to in this last emergency. 



Looking through a hive which is not only with- 

 out a queen, but which is without any means of 

 raising one, certain mysterious eggs are unex- 

 pectedly discovered. These eggs are obviously 

 quite newly laid, but not in the orthodox way. 

 A normal queen works consistently from cell to 

 cell, over a fairly regular patch of comb, and 



