PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



129 



virgin she is treated with the utmost indifference, which is 

 exchanged, as soon as impregnation has taken place, for the 

 above marks of attachment. 1 



The instinct of the bees, however, does not always enable 

 them to distinguish a partially fertile queen from one that is 

 universally so. What I mean is this : a queen, whose im- 

 pregnation is retarded beyond the twenty -eighth day of her 

 whole existence, lays only male eggs, which are of no use 

 whatever to the community, unless they are at the same time 

 provided with a sufficient supply of workers. Yet even a 

 queen of this description, and sometimes one that is entirely 

 sterile, is treated by them with the same respect and homage 

 as a fertile one. This seems to evince an amiable feeling in 

 these creatures, attachment to the person as well as to the 

 functions of the sovereign ; which is further manifested by 

 their unwillingness at first to receive a new sovereign upon the 

 loss or death of their old one. Nay, this respect is sometimes 

 shown to the carcass of a defunct queen, which Huber as- 

 sures us he has seen bees treat with the same attention that 

 they had shown her when alive, for a long time preferring 

 her inanimate corpse to the fertile queens that he offered to 

 them. 2 He attributes this to some agreeable sensation which 

 they experience from their queens, independent of their fe- 

 cundity. But since virgin queens, as we have seen, do not 

 excite it, more probably it is a remnant of their former at- 

 tachment, first excited by her fecundity, and afterwards 

 strengthened and continued by habit. 



I may here introduce an interesting anecdote related by 

 Reaumur, which strongly marks the attachment of bees to 

 their queen when apparently lifeless. He took one out of the 

 water quite motionless, and seemingly dead, which had lost 

 part of one of its legs. Bringing it home, he placed it 

 amongst some workers that he had found in the same situa- 

 tion, most of which he had revived by means of warmth ; 

 some, however, still being in as bad a state as the poor queen. 

 No sooner did these revived workers perceive the latter in 

 this wretched condition, than they appeared to compassionate 



1 Huber, i. 269. 

 VOL. II. 



K 



2 Huber, i. 322. 



