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 cells, the bees bite and pull and
insult her as before.

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away from
home when my bees swarm. What a delightful summer sound it is! how they