royal weapon--curved, in scimeter fashion, instead of being
straight, like that of the ordinary bee--save only in the case of
her doing battle with an equal: in other words, with a sister queen.

No bee, it would seem, dare take on herself the horror of direct and
bloody regicide. Whenever, therefore, the good order and prosperity
of the republic appear to demand that a queen shall die, they
endeavour to give to her death some semblance of natural decease,
and by infinite subdivision of the crime, to render it almost
anonymous.

They will, therefore, to use the picturesque expression of the
apiarist, "ball "the queenly intruder; in other words, they will
entirely surround her with their innumerable interlaced bodies. They
will thus form a sort of living prison wherein the captive is unable
to move; and in this prison they will keep her for twenty-four
hours, if need be, till the victim die of suffocation or hunger.

But if, at this moment, the legitimate queen draw near, and,
scenting a rival, appear disposed to attack her, the living walls of
the prison will at once fly open; and the bees, forming a circle
around the two enemies, will eagerly watch the strange duel that
will ensue, though remaining strictly impartial, and taking no share
in it. For it is written that against a mother the sting may be
drawn by a mother alone; only she who bears in her flanks close on
two million lives appears to possess the right with one blow to
inflict close on two million deaths.

But if the combat last too long, without any result, if the circular
weapons glide harmlessly over the heavy cuirasses, if one of the