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A CHASE AND A FIGHT.

right, whilst the young Queen cannot. This is a lesson which grown men may learn as well as little children, who are "small men and women.' Lay your ear close to a strong stock on a fine summer's evening; you may hear a clear shrill sound, PEE-EP, PEEP, PEEP, and then an answer in the same words, but in young Queen seems to say,

a gruff note. The "Let me come out;"

"If you come out,

and the old Queen to answer, I will give it you;" just as a spoilt child cries when it sees its elder brothers and sisters going down after dinner, whilst it for its good is kept in the nursery. I never knew any lady so cruel as to quiet her darling by putting an end to it at once, though a pet is often right troublesome when let out of its nursery before its proper time. Nor did I ever know a child so fractious as to bite through its nursery door, though I have known many kick very lustily at it. If you listen closely, you will find that this sound, or rather the Bees who are making it, travel round from one part of the Hive to the other. I myself have no doubt that the shrill note is made by a young Queen who has escaped from her cell, whilst the gruff note is made by the old Queen, who is chasing her round and round the Hive, and would immediately put an end to her peeping and her life together, if the Workers did not prevent her. Look out sharp for

FETTING THE YOUNG.

289

a cast next day, as they are pretty sure to rise the first shiny morning.

François Hüber saw by the eyes of his servant (for, as I told you, he was blind himself,) two young Queens hatched at the same moment; there was a most dreadful fight between them, and it ended in the death of one.

The young Worker when first hatched comes out to dry itself in the sun. You may see many on the lighting-board at breeding time. They are much smaller than the old Bees, though quite formed. Now a chicken when it leaves the egg is all damp, and the hen dries it by the warmth of her body, and then picks its feathers out. The sun dries the young Bee, who also comes damp

out of her cell; and you may see the old Bees picking out the hairs which stand them in the stead of feathers, as a North-countryman would say, fetting them. They then most times wheel for a moment round the Hive, as if to make sure of its place, and then dart off in the clear sunshine for their first load of honey, without needing any one to show them which are good and which bad

290

BALLS OF BEE-BREAD, HOW MADE.

flowers. Now is not even a Worker Bee a wonderful creature?

But the Queen Bee is the most wonderful beast under the sun. A common Bee, as I told you in my last Letter, only lives one year. No one knows how long the Queen Bee lives, though I hope some day to find out. Now all good Bee-masters can tell a Queen among ten thousand; indeed I have often picked her Majesty out in less than a minute from a whole swarm, which was lying stupid before me.

I have given you an exact wood-cut of the hind leg of the Worker. Now the Queen's hind leg is quite smooth, for she was never meant to carry burdens, -she could not if she tried; the Worker's leg, on the contrary, is covered on the inside of the middle joint with rough bristles, as strong, when compared with the Bee, as the scrubbing-brush is to the hand of the maid-of-all-work who holds it. It is a most beautiful thing to look at through a strong magnifying glass. The wood-cut is of course much larger than life; indeed a Bee to which it would fit would be as large as a rat.

The use of the bristles on the inside of her hind legs is to roll the flower dust, or, as it is called, pollen, which she gathers from the flowers, mainly with her mouth, into round balls; she then sticks these pellets into two hollows which are on the