PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



125 



first ; and they probably know their progress to maturity 

 by the emission of the sound lately mentioned. The 

 accurate Huber took the trouble to mark all the royal 

 cells in a hive as soon as the workers had covered them 

 in, and he found that they were all liberated according 

 to seniority. Those first covered first emit the sound, 

 and so on successively ; whence he conjectures that this is 

 the sign by which the workers discover their age. As their 

 captivity, however, is sometimes prolonged to eight or ten days, 

 this circumstance in that time may be forgotten. In this 

 case he supposes that their tones grow stronger as they grow 

 older, by which the workers may be enabled to distinguish 

 them. It is remarkable that no guard is placed round the 

 mute queens bred according to the Lusatian method, which, 

 when the time for their appearance is come, are not detained 

 in captivity a single moment; but, as you have heard, are 

 left to fight, conquer, or die. 1 



You must not think, however, from what I have been 

 saying, that the old queen never destroys the young ones 

 previously to her leading forth the earliest swarm. She is 

 allowed the most uncontrolled liberty of action ; and if she 

 chooses to approach and destroy the royal cells, her subjects 

 do not oppose her. It sometimes happens, when unfavour- 

 able weather retards the first swarm, that all the royal 

 progeny perishes by the sting of their mother, and then no 

 swarm takes place. It is to be observed that she never 

 attacks a royal cell till its inhabitant is ready to assume the 

 pupa ; therefore much will depend upon their age. When 

 they arrive at this state, her horror of these cells, and 

 aversion to them, are extreme: she attacks, perhaps, and 

 destroys several ; but finding it too laborious, for they are 

 often numerous, to destroy the whole, the same agitation is 

 caused in her as if she were forcibly prevented, and she 

 becomes disposed to depart, rather than remain in the midst 

 of her rivals, though her own offspring. 



But though the bees, in one of these cases, appear such 

 unconcerned spectators of the destruction of royal personages, 



1 Huber, i. 286. 



