ntirely vested in the great
mass, the workers. They furnish all the brains and foresight of the
colony, and administer its affairs. Their word is law, and both king and
queen must obey. They regulate the swarming, and give the signal for the
swarm to issue from the hive; they select and make ready the tree in the
woods and conduct the queen to it.

The peculiar office and sacredness of the queen consists in the fact
that she is the mother of the swarm, and the bees love and cherish her
as a mother and not as a sovereign. She is the sole female bee in the
hive, and the swarm clings to her because she is their life. Deprived
of their queen, and of all brood from which to rear one, the swarm loses
all heart and soon dies, though there be an abundance of honey in the
hive.

The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is
to be disposed of they starve her to death; and the queen herself will
sting nothing but royalty--nothing but a rival queen.

The queen, I say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her
to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she is
a superb creature, and looks every inch a queen. It is an event to
distinguish her amid the mass of bees when the swarm alights; it awakens
a thrill. Before you have seen a queen you wonder if this or that bee,
which seems a little larger than its fellows, is not she, but when you
once really set eyes upon her you do not doubt for a moment. You
know that is the queen. That long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking
creature can be none less than royalty. How beautifully her body tapers,
how distinguished she looks, how deliberate her movements! The bees
do not fall down before her, but caress her and touch her person.
The drones or males, are large bees too, but coarse, blunt,
broad-shouldered, masculine-looking. There is but one fact or incident
in the life of the queen that looks imperial and authoritative: Huber
relates that when the old queen is restrained in her movements by the
workers, and prevented from destroying the young queens in their cells,
she assumes a peculiar attitude and utters a note that strikes every bee
motionless, and makes every head bow; while this sound lasts not a bee
stirs, but all look abashed and humbled, yet whether the emotion is one
of fear, or reverence, or of sympathy with the distress of the queen
mother, is hard to determine. The moment it ceases and she advances
again toward the royal