Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/507

Rh of the royal jelly, have their reproductive organs partially developed, and lay drone-eggs. This fact was reached by an experiment which required great courage and an almost incredible patience. Burneus, of his own free will, caught, held, and carefully examined every bee of two swarms in which fertile workers were suspected. This required eleven days of steady labor. "During all that time," says Huber, "he scarcely allowed himself any relaxation except what the relief of his eyes required." Each bee, after examination, was transferred to a glass hive, which was watched; finally, a bee was caught in the act of laying, and was dissected: small ovaries were detected containing a few eggs, but in all other respects it was a perfect worker.

Huber also discovered the bitter animosity of the queens toward each other. He observed the first-hatched queen, as she emerges from her cell, traverse the comb till she finds a royal cell, which she tears open, in apparent fury, and then stings the helpless pupae to death. This she repeats again and again till she has destroyed every possible rival. If, however, two queens emerge simultaneously, the bees clear a space, and stand back and watch the conflict, which must end fatally to one or the other. The two queens attack each other, but, if, during the fight, they happen to find themselves in such a position that, by closing, each would kill the other, they withdraw, and begin the combat afresh. As soon as either secures such an advantage of position that she can sting without being stung, the fatal thrust is given.

Réaumur made the suggestion that it is the queens themselves who rid themselves of their rivals; but he had been strongly opposed by the German naturalists, who contended that the worker-bees disposed of the interlopers. What Réaumur advanced as a conjecture Huber founded upon the impregnable basis of fact.

If a strange queen be introduced into a swarm possessing one of their own, the workers generally surround her, and quietly detain her prisoner till she perishes of hunger, but do her no direct injury. The only instance where workers were ever known to sting a queen was once, during a general mêlée, and then it seemed pure accident. If, however, the stranger queen, by accident, passes the sentinels at the door, without being challenged, or is introduced by the experimenter into the hive, for the purpose of observation upon the point, and brought into close quarters with their own queen, they insist upon a battle, and restrain the motions of either if they seem inclined to fly.

After the loss of a queen, by a swarm, if a strange queen be introduced, her reception will depend entirely upon the time which has elapsed since their bereavement. At first, they refuse to be comforted, and reject contumeliously any attempt to replace their loss. After eighteen hours, they begin to consider the matter, and, in twenty-four, receive, with royal honors, any queen offered to them.

The yearly massacre of the drones, though a well-known fact,