PERTECT SOCIETIES OF INSECYS. 153 
ceeding as usual. About an hour after her ‘departure, 
inquietude begins to manifest itself amongst them; the 
care of the young brood no longer engages their atten- 
tion, and they run here and there, as if in great agita- 
tion. This agitation, however, is at first confined to a 
small portion of the community. ‘The bees that are first 
sensible of their loss meet with others, they mutually 
cross their antennee, and strike them lightly. By this 
action they appear to communicate the sad intelligence 
to those who receive the blow, who in their turn impart 
it in the same way to others. Disorder and confusion 
increase rapidly, till the whole population is in a tumult. 
Then the workers may be seen running over the combs, 
and against each other ; impetuously rushing to the en- 
trance and quitting the hive; from thence they spread 
themselves all around, they re-enter, and go out again 
and again. ‘The hum in the hive becomes very loud, 
and increases the tumult, which lasts two or three hours, 
rarely four or five: they then return and resume their 
wonted care of the young; and if the hive be visited 
twenty-four hours after the departure of the queen, it 
will be seen that they have taken steps to repair their 
loss by filling some of the cells with a larger quantity of 
jelly than is the usual portion of common larvze; which 
however is intended, it seems, not for the food of the 
inhabitant, but for a cushion to elevate it, since it 
is found unconsumed in the cell when the grub is de- 
scended into the pyramidal habitation afterwards pre- 
pared forit?: 
If, after being removed, their old queen is restored to 
4 Yuber, 11. 596—~ 
