192 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE' 



the first time, and if thereafter the hive settles 

 down to its old courses, the national character for 

 sobriety and industry soon rehabilitates itself. But 

 it is just the strength of this public inclination 

 towards order and labour which varies so greatly 

 in different hives. How matters are likely to go 

 can be readily ascertained by setting careful watch 

 on the hive from the day the first swarm leaves. 

 There are sure to be several queen-cells, some 

 capped over and almost ready to hatch out, and 

 others in various stages of development. All these 

 cells are constantly and assiduously guarded by 

 the worker-bees, because directly one of the queens 

 is hatched, her first thought is to make a speedy 

 end to all future rivalry by murdering her sisters. 

 She comes from her cell evidently spoiling for a 

 fight, and imbued to the core with that inveterate 

 hatred of her kind which is the ruling passion of 

 her existence. 



That worker-bees and queen-bees should have 

 an identical origin, and yet that the nature of the 

 one is to live in perfect harmony, while the nature 

 of the other is to be at perpetual war, is one of 

 those mysterious things in bee-life which probably 

 will never be explained. If the queen-bee of 

 to-day can be really taken as an approximate type 

 of the aboriginal female of her race, it is not 

 difficult to understand that after her generation in 

 force the communal life of the mother-stock would 

 become an impossibility, and that with the mating- 



