1022 Marvels of the Universe 
with the true communal spirit ; but if two queens meet, there is nothing for it but a duel to the 
death. 
In physical attributes there is an even more marked divergence between mother-bee and worker. 
The queen is much larger in body, though smaller in head and considerably shorter of tongue. 
The queen’s mandibles, or sidelong jaws, are curiously notched, while those of the worker-bee are 
smooth and spoon-like in form. The sting of the queen is much longer than that of the worker ; it 
is also strongly decurved. The worker’s sting is straight. 
On the worker’s legs exist several ingenious implements—a pair of neatly-contrived pincers, 
a sort of curry-comb for removing pollen-grains from the hairy surface of her body, a basket-like 
Photos bv] (7. Fdwardes. 
BEE’S STING. 
The Bee’s sting is here contrasted with the point 
of the finest needle, both being magnified to the same 
extent. The upper figure is the sting, the lower the 
needle point 
device wherein the pollen is collected and borne to 
the hive—of all of which the queen’s legs are wholly 
destitute. The wonderful wax-generating organs, 
under the plates of the worker-bee’s abdomen, do 
not exist in the queen; while the queen has two 
enormously-developed ovaries with their accompanying 
parts, which in the worker are so atrophied and rudi- 
mentary as to be practically non-existent. 
And all these differences—not merely degrees in 
development, but veritable organic changes—are due, 
we have no alternative from believing, to treatment 
and food-modification in the larve hatched from one 
and the same kind of egg. 
It is easy to set the words down on paper, but to 
grasp their full significance is a wholly different thing. 
Biologists tell us that, with all forms of life, in the 
germ of the ovum lies potentially each completed 
being. Yet how to reconcile this axiom with the 
known facts in the growth of queen- and worker-bee, 
seems a problem not only of difficult, but of incon- 
ceivable, solution. And to admit an exception to an 
universally accepted law, is merely to increase the 
dilemma ; for in science an exception does not prove, 
but wholly discredits and destroys, a rule. 
Thus a mystery invests the very beginnings of 
life in the honey-bee, and never entirely leaves 
the mind throughout all our subsequent study of 
her intricate anatomy. We _ need, however, no 
miraculous tinge to stir up a spirit of wonder when 
we come more nearly to examine her extraordinary 
equipment. 
Perhaps the thing we notice first about a worker- 
bee is the way in which she employs her antenne. 
These are two flail-shaped appendages attached to 
the forehead, and she incessantly waves them about, 
making use of them apparently in all she undertakes. 
To the naked eye they are no more than two 
slender, flexible, thread-like attachments, but under 
the microscope they exhibit innumerable complica- 
tions. They bear upon their surface at least half a 
