MANAGEMENT OF HONEY BEES. 61 
destroy them. I have witnessed this inter- 
esting exhibition of Bee warfare, as descri- 
bed by Huber: I have seen two queens that 
happened to emerge from their celis at the 
same time, and saw them come in contact 
with each other, when a pitched battle took 
place, which generally ends in the death of 
one of the combatants. 
CHAPTER X. 
OF THE WORKER BEE. 
The workers to the number of 10,000, 
20,000, 30,000, and even 40,000, constitute 
the great mass of the population, and on 
them devolve the whole labors of the estab- 
lishment. Theirs is the oflice of searching 
for and collecting the precious fluid, which 
not only furnishes their daily food, as well 
as that of their young, and the surplus of 
which is laid up for winter stores, but also 
the materials from which they rear their 
beautiful combs. In the little basket-shaped 
6 
