504 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
enable them to’ fly the moment they are at liberty, gra- 
dually paring away the waxen wall that confines them 
to their cell to an extreme thinness, and only suffering 
it to be broken down at the precise moment required ;— 
the attention with which, in thesé circumstances, they 
feed the imprisoned queen by frequently putting honey 
upon her proboscis, protruded from a small orifice in 
the lid of her cell;—the watchfulness with which, when 
at the period of swarming more queens than one are re- 
quired, they place a guard over the cells of those undis- 
closed, to preserve them from the jealous fury of their 
excluded rivals ;—the exquisite calculation with which 
they invariably release the oldest queens the first from 
their confinement;—the singular love of monarchical 
dominion, by which, when two queens in other circum- 
stances are produced, they are led to impel them to com- 
bat until one is destroyed ;—the ardent devotion which 
binds them to the fate and fortunes of the survivor ;— 
the distraction which they manifest at her loss, and their 
resolute determination not to accept of any stranger un- 
til an interval has elapsed sufficiently long to allow of no 
chance of the return of their rightful sovereign ;—and 
(to omit a further enumeration) the obedience which in 
the utmost noise and confusion they show to her well- 
known hum. 
I have now instanced at least thirty distinct instincts 
with which every individual of the nurses amongst the 
working-bees is endowed: and if to the account be add- 
ed their care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of 
any of the community; their pertinacity in their battles, 
in directing their sting at those parts only of the bodies 
of their adversaries which are penetrable by it; their 
