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Updated: June 9, 2025
We need not marvel at the sting of the bee, when used against the enemy, causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such great numbers for one single act, and being then slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases.
Tell the bees we will go away and leave them in peace forever if they will deliver up the prisoners." The messenger rushed off. At the entrance he waved his white signal and alighted on the flying-board. The queen-bee was immediately informed that an emissary was outside who wanted to make terms, and she sent her aide to parley with him.
Now, just as the worker bees kill off the drones as soon as the queen-bee has been duly fertilized, regarding them as of no further importance or value to the hive, so do the lady-spiders not only kill but eat their husbands as soon as they find they have no further use for them.
Certainly no one was strong enough to control them, least of all their mother, the queen-bee of the hive, on whom nine-tenths of the burden fell, on whose strength they all depended, but whose children were much too self-willed and self-confident to take guidance from her, or from any one else, unless in the direction they fancied. Father and mother were about equally helpless.
The Queen-bee composed herself quickly; and with mildly silencing looks seemed to observe that she had somewhat forgotten her own dignity, and seated herself quietly and becomingly among the "grown people," as one of them, whilst the other children gathered themselves in a little group in one corner of the room, whispering and wondering; and whoever had looked at them might have seen many a time Petrea's nose peering forth from the little group.
Again, it is a well-established fact that the larva of a working-bee will develop into a queen-bee, if before it is too late, its food be changed to that on which the larvæ of queen-bees are fed. All which instances suggest that the proximate cause of each advance in embryonic complication is the action of incident forces upon the complication previously existing.
"I think he is much handsomer than my father," said little Petrea. "I think," said the Queen-bee, in a tone of correction, "that nobody can be more perfect than my father." "That is true, excepting mamma," exclaimed Eva, out of her little bed. "Ah," said Petrea, "I like him so much; he has given me that lovely picture. Do you know what I shall call that girl?
If I were but rich enough to buy the place, it should soon have a different appearance, and instead of cows human beings should be walking there; these boards should be torn down, and our garden should be united to the great promenade. What a situation it would be!" "Would not beehives answer very well here?" asked our sensible Queen-bee; "the sun strikes directly on these boards."
It may be difficult, but we ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the queen-bee, which urges her instantly to destroy the young queens her daughters as soon as born, or to perish herself in the combat; for undoubtedly this is for the good of the community; and maternal love or maternal hatred, though the latter fortunately is most rare, is all the same to the inexorable principle of natural selection.
The astonishment of the children rose to the highest pitch, and there was no end to their conjectures. The Queen-bee imagined that there must be a hole in his pocket, through which the pincushion had fallen on the stairs. Petrea, in whose suggestion the joke originated, was quite dismayed about the fate of the cushion.
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