352 
BRITISH BEES. 
those which collected it fly off for fresh supplies, should 
more be needed. Concurrently with the execution 
of all these things, wax is still being secreted by fes¬ 
toons of bees suspended wherever there is space, the 
sculpturer bees are still moulding cells, the queen is still 
laying eggs, deferentially attended, as usual, by her 
maids of honour; the young brood is still being fed; 
other bees are ventilating the hive at its entrance and 
within its streets and lanes by the rapid vibration of 
their wings; the sentinels are diligently keeping guard 
to repel the inimical intrusion of wasps or snails or 
woodlice, or the moth which is so destructive to the in¬ 
terior in her larva state, from the covered moveable 
silken retreat which she constructs impervious to the 
sting, and thence with impunity gets at the silk of the 
cocoons and consumes the wax, making, when once fairly 
domiciled, such fearful havoc in the hive that the bees are 
fain to desert it,—and the many other numerous enemies 
which lust for the luscious honey, or whose voracity is 
attracted by the poor little diligent bees themselves, but 
who in such contingencies exhibit invincible courage, 
which, if not always successful in its efforts, is always 
meritorious. Where self-preservation is not the promp¬ 
ter, or the rivalry of love the instigator, but the duration 
of which is limited to a season, the feuds of the animal 
world all seem to proceed from the urgency of their 
gastronomic suggestions, the acrimony of which urges 
craft and strength to their most powerful exhibition. 
To allay hunger, destruction is perpetrated and order 
despoiled, and thus our bees become the victims of the 
imperativeness of this universal law. But sometimes 
they are triumphant over a very large enemy; for in¬ 
stance, an intrusive mouse, or a slug that has slimed its 
