142 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
looked: in some instances a single queen only is wanted 
to govern her native hive; in others several are necessary 
to lead the swarms. In the first case, inevitable death is 
the lot of all but one; in the other, as many as are wanted 
are preserved from destruction by the precautions taken 
on that occasion, under the direction of an all-wise Pro-. 
vidence, by the workers. 
I shall enlarge a little on each of these cases. In the 
formicary, as we have seen, rival queens live together very 
harmoniously without molesting each other: but there is 
that instinctive jealousy in a queen bee, that no sooner 
does she discover the existence of another in the hive, 
than she is put into a state of the most extreme agi- 
tation, and is not easy until she has attacked and de- 
stroyed her. 
Naturalists had observed, that when there were two 
queens in the same hive, one of them soon perished ; but 
some supposed (this was the opinion of Schirach and 
Riem) that the workers destroyed the supernumeraries. 
Reaumur, however, conjectured that these queens attack- 
ed each other; and his conjecture has been since con- 
firmed by the actual observation of other naturalists. 
Blassiere, the translator of Schirach, tells us, as what he 
had himself witnessed, that the strongest queen kills her 
rival with her sting; and the same is asserted by Huber, 
whose opportunities of observation were greater than 
those of any of his precursors?. 
The queen that is first liberated from her confinement, 
and has assumed the perfect or imago state (it is to be 
supposed that the author is here speaking of'a hive which 
* Schirach, 209, note *. Huber, i. 170— 
