PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS, 367 
the perfect or imago state (it is to be supposed that the author is here 
speaking of a hive which has lost the old queen), soon after this event 
goes to visit the royal cells that are still inhabited. She darts with fury 
upon the first with which she meets; by means of her jaws she gnaws 
a hole large enough to introduce the end of her abdomen, and with her 
sting, before the included female is in a condition to defend herself or 
resist her attack, she gives her a mortal wound. The workers, who re- 
main passive spectators of this assassination, after she quits the victim of 
her jealousy, enlarge the breach that she has made, and drag forth the 
carcass of a queen just emerged from the thin membrane that envelops 
the pupa. Ifthe object of her attack be still in the pupa state, she is 
stimulated by a less violent degree of rage, and contents herself with 
making a breach in the cell ; when this happens, the death of the inclosed 
insect is equally certain, for the workers enlarge the breach, pull it out, 
and it perishes.’ If it happens, as it sometimes does, that two queens are 
disclosed at the same time, the care of Providence to prevent the hive 
from being wholly despoiled of a governor is singularly manifested by a 
remarkable trait in their instinct, which, when mutual destruction seems 
inevitable, makes them separate from each other as if panic-struck, 
“Two young queens,” says M. Huber, “left their cells one day, almost 
at the same moment; as soon as they came within sight, they darted upon 
each other, as if inflamed by the most ungovernable anger, and placed 
themselyes in such an attitude that the antenne of each were held by the 
jaws of its antagonist ; head was opposed to head, trunk to trunk, abdo- 
men to abdomen; and they had only to bend the extremity of the latter, 
and they would have fallen reciprocal victims to each other’s sting.” But 
nature having decreed that these duels should not be fatal to both combat- 
ants, as soon as they were thus circumstanced a panic fear seemed to 
strike them, and they disengaged themselves, and each fled away. After a 
few minutes were expired, the attack was renewed in a similar manner with 
the same issue ; till at last one suddenly seizing the other by her wing, 
mounted upon her and inflicted a mortal wound.? 
The combats I have here described to you took place between virgin 
queens ; but M. Huber found that those which had been impregnated 
were actuated by the same animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury 
equally destructive. When another fertile queen had been introduced 
into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which proves how well aware the 
workers are that they cannot prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after 
she was introduced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, —not 
to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the usual homage, but to 
confine her, and prevent her escape; for they insensibly agglomerated 
themselves in such numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, 
that in about a minute she was completely a prisoner. While this was 
transacting, what was equally remarkable, other workers assembled in 
clusters round the legitimate queen, and impeded all her motions ; so that 
Soon she was not more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the 
bees foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the two rivals, and 
Were impatient for the event; for they only confined them when they 
Appeared to avoid each other. To witness the homage, respect; and love 
that they usually manifest to their lawful ruler, the anxiety concerning her 
1 Huber, i. 171. 2 Huber, i. 174. 
