A HAPPY FAMILY. 
63 
prove bv experiment. Reaumur first hit upon a mode 
of counting bees : he weighed a swarm; the result was 
four pounds. Now a pound of bees contains five thou¬ 
sand individuals, and as many as half-a-dozen pounds of 
bees is the common weight of a strong and prosperous 
stock. Hence, if I tell you that nearly half a million 
hard-working folks recognise and love me as a father, 
you will at least allow I am a true pater familias, and in 
that sense, more worthy than even old Priam of Troy, 
who, I think, was the father of only fifty children. 
Of course I read the “ Georgies ” of Yirgil, and make 
many a brown study over Columella, and Schirach, and 
Reaumur, and Huber, and Cotton; nor do I forget old 
Tupper, who has a grand place in my library—no, nor 
Wildman, nor Nutt, nor Taylor, nor any other true 
student of this wonderful insect. Here, indeed, I can 
verify with my own hands and eyes many of the most 
startling discoveries that have been made as to the habits 
and instincts of the bee, and become daily familiar with 
facts that the majority of those who only read about 
them must regard as extravagant fictions. I see the 
queen, surrounded by her state attendants, every one of 
which right loyally faces the supreme female magistrate 
and mother of the state : never one of that dutiful train 
turning its back even for an instant to the royal mistress, 
who represents all, and more than can be imagined, of 
dignity and command concentrated into the compass of 
iess than an inch. I see the progress and development 
of new broods, the deadly hate of rival queens, when it 
happens that two come into contact. As two claimants 
to a throne cause civil war in human states, so with the 
