passed on the surface of the comb where the queen
stood, all was quiet on the other side. Here the workers were apparently
ignorant of a queen's arrival in the hive. They laboured with great
activity at the royal cells, as if ignorant that they no longer stood in
need of them: they watched over the royal worms, supplied them with
jelly and the like. But the queen having at length come to this side,
she was received with the same respect that she had experienced from
their companions on the other side of the comb. They encompassed her;
gave her honey; and touched her with their antennae: and what proved
better that they treated her as a mother, was their immediately
desisting from work at the royal cells; they removed the worms, and
devoured the food collected around them. From this moment the queen was
recognised by all her people, and conducted herself in this new
habitation as if it had been her native hive.

These particulars will give a just idea of the manner that bees receive
a stranger queen; when they have time to forget their own, she is
treated exactly as if she was their natural one, except that there is
perhaps at first greater interest testified in her, or more conspicuous
demonstrations of it. I am sensible of the impropriety of these
expressions, but M. de Reaumur in some respect authorises them. He does
not scruple to say, that bees pay _attention_, _homage_, and _respect_,
to their queen, and from his example the like expressions have escaped
most authors that treat on bees.

Twenty-four or thirty hours absence is sufficient to make them forget
their first queen, but I can hazard no conjecture on the cause.

* * * * *

Before terminating this letter, which is full of combats and disastrous
scenes, I should, perhaps, give you an account of some more pleasing
and interesting facts relative to their industry. However, to avoid
returning to duels and massacres, I shall here subjoin my observations
on the massacre of the males.

You will remember, Sir, it is agreed by all observers, that at a certain
period of the year, the workers kill and expel the drones. M. de Reaumur
speaks of these executions as a horrible massacre. He does not expressly
affirm, indeed, that he has himself witnessed it, but what we have seen
corresponds so well with his account, that there can be no doubt he has
beheld the peculiarities of the massacre.

It is usually in the months of July and Augu