SOUND EMITTED BY OLD QUEENS. 189 



Huber for the consistency of his observations ; and we have 

 now an additional proof to adduce of how richly he is de- 

 serving of that eulogium, for in one place we find him pro- 

 mulgating the fact, that when the young queen emerges 

 from the cell, she loses the power of emitting any sound 

 whatever ; but if we proceed a little further, we find, to our 

 great surprise, that the old queens possess the power, when 

 at liberty, of emitting the piping sound. On which of these 

 two statements are we to bestow our credence ? The case of 

 the old queen emitting this sound is thus described by 

 Huber, page 193. " Mr. Huber was very anxious to observe 

 the motions of the old queen ; he saw her mount a royal 

 cell, as if she were ascending a throne, and having seated 

 herself comfortably upon it, she began to symphonise, at 

 the conclusion of which, she assumed the dreaded attitude, 

 and the bees of course were stricken motionless." It ap- 

 peared however on this occasion that the articulating power 

 of her majesty must have been soon exhausted; for on a 

 sudden the sound ceased — the bees became immediately 

 endowed with motion — they resumed their wonted courage, 

 and with a most rebellious spirit drove her from the throne 

 on which she had seated herself. 



The reasons for the confinement of the young queens in 

 their cells by the bees have also been the source of anxious 

 inquiry by Mr. Huber, and he has favoured us with many 

 various statements for those reasons ; indeed his ingenuity 

 on this head appears to be rather inexhaustible, for he on 

 a sudden discovers that the bees are excellent judges of the 

 weather, which, by the by, is a discovery made long before 

 Mr. Huber appeared in the world. It was, however, in the 

 first place discovered by that renowned naturalist, that the 

 incarceration of the young queens arose from the bees having 

 ascertained that she was not in a condition to fly, but he 

 subsequently discovers that this apparently tyrannical and 

 ungracious conduct on the part of the bees did not proceed 



