INSTINCT OF THE QUEEN BEE. 181 



We must, however, now suppose, the young queen to have 

 emerged from her cell in all her natural beauty and vigor, 

 and Mr. Huber informs us, that she now engrossed the 

 whole of his attention. Previously, however, to our enter- 

 ing into a detail of the extraordinary circumstances which 

 Mr. Huber now witnessed, we will formally enter our protest 

 against the power acknowledged and enjoyed by Mr. Huber 

 of watching the motions of a queen bee with that accuracy 

 and minuteness, which he has so circumstantially described. 

 We have frequently been three hours in examining the bees 

 of a hive, before we could obtain even a glimpse of the queen ; 

 and in the common straw hive, we declare it to be an actual 

 impossibility, without driving all the bees out of the hive. 

 The queen bee appears to entertain such an instinctive dread 

 of being seen, that the moment the light is admitted into 

 the hive, she conceals herself in the thickest cluster of 

 the bees, and in the darkest part in which she can take 

 refuge. The queen bees of Huber are however the most 

 accommodating insects in the world, for in all his transactions 

 with them, they appear in a certain degree to anticipate his 

 wishes ; their innate love of concealment appears for a time 

 to be suspended, and they present to him on every occa- 

 sion, the utmost possible facility of penetrating into the mys- 

 teries of their nature. 



We will now proceed to the detail of the actions which 

 Mr. Huber witnessed in the young queen ; and, in the first 

 place, immediately on her emerging from the cell, her mur- 

 derous disposition began to manifest itself, and she repaired 

 to the other royal cells for the purpose of murdering the 

 embryo monarchs, but, here again, her majesty was thwarted 

 in her regicidal intentions by the vigilance of her rebellious 

 subjects. According to Huber it is a trait inherent in the 

 nature of the queen bees to murder all the embryo queens ; 

 but fortunately for them, the bees possess a counteracting 

 power ; and in the present instance, the young queen had no 

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