queen was born, but her wings were imperfect, and she was unable to
fly. Impotent as she was, her bees did not treat her with the less
respect. A week more, and there remained hardly a dozen bees; yet a
few days, and the queen had vanished, leaving a few wretched,
inconsolable insects upon the combs."

There is another instance, and one that reveals most palpably the
ultimate gesture of filial love and devotion. It arises from one of
the extraordinary ordeals that our recent and tyrannical
intervention inflicts on these hapless, unflinching heroines. I, in
common with all amateur bee-keepers, have more than once had
impregnated queens sent me from Italy; for the Italian species is
more prolific, stronger, more active, and gentler than our own. It
is the custom to forward them in small, perforated boxes. In these
some food is placed, and the queen enclosed, together with a certain
number of workers, selected as far as possible from among the oldest
bees in the hive. (The age of the bee can be readily told by its
body, which gradually becomes more polished, thinner, and almost
bald; and more particularly by the wings, which hard work uses and
tears.) It is their mission to feed the queen during the journey, to
tend her and guard her. I would frequently find, when the box
arrived, that nearly every one of the workers was dead. On one
occasion, indeed, they had all perished of hunger; but in this
instance as in all others the queen was alive, unharmed, and full of
vigour; and the last of her companions had probably passed away in
the act of presenting the last drop of honey she held in her sac to
the queen, who was symbol of a life more precious, more vast than
her own.

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