hive, or comes into it, one of the two soon
perishes. He has not actually witnessed the combat in which she falls,
but he conjectures there is a mutual attack, and that the empire remains
with the strongest or the most fortunate. M. Schirach, on the other
hand, and, after him, M. Riems, thinks that the working bees assail the
stranger, and sting her to death. I cannot comprehend by what means they
have been able to make this observation: as they used very thick hives
only, with several rows of combs, they could at most but observe the
commencement of hostilities. While the combat lasts, the bees move with
great rapidity; they fly on all sides; and, gliding between the combs,
conceal their motions from the observer. For my part, though using the
most favourable hives, I have never seen a combat between the queens and
workers, but I have very often beheld one between the queens themselves.

In one of my hives in particular, there were five or six royal cells,
each including a nymph. The eldest first underwent its transformation.
Scarcely did ten minutes elapse from the time of this young queen
leaving her cradle, when she visited the other royal cells still close.
She furiously attacked the nearest; and, by dint of labour, succeeded
in opening the top: we saw her tearing the silk of the coccoon with her
teeth; but her efforts were probably inadequate to the object, for she
abandoned this end of the cell, and began at the other, where she
accomplished a larger aperture. When it was sufficiently enlarged, she
endeavoured to introduce her belly, and made many exertions until she
succeeded in giving her rival a deadly wound with her sting. Then having
left the cell, all the bees that had hitherto been spectators of her
labour, began to increase the opening, and drew out the dead body of a
queen scarcely come from its envelope of a nymph.

Meanwhile, the victorious young queen attacked another royal cell, but
did not endeavour to introduce her extremity into it. There was only a
royal nymph, and no queen, come to maturity, as in the first cell. In
all probability, nymphs of queens inspire their rivals with less
animosity; still they do not escape destruction: because, whenever a
royal cell has been opened before the proper time, the bees extract the
contents in whatever form they may be, whether worm, nymph, or queen.
Lastly, the young queen attacked the third cell, but could not succeed
in penetrating it. She laboured languid