A Bee-master.
Tunbridge Wells.
* * * * *
Bees, Bee-hives, and Bee-masters.
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
Sir,--I have been so annoyed at your correspondent's attack on the
good name of my bees, that I cannot resist the temptation of saying a
word or two of additional defence.
That the queen is not a mere egg-laying machine obedient to mere
mechanical impulses, nor her subjects mere mechanical creations
obeying similar impulses with no instructive appreciation, will be
evident from the following facts:--
Reaumur, the eminent naturalist, observes that after the queen-regnant
has become a mother--
"The bees are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to
her and to render her every kind office. They are for ever offering
her honey. They lick her with the proboscis, and wherever she goes
they form a court to attend her. Even the body of a dead queen is
the object of tender affection to the bees. I took a queen out of
the water seemingly dead. She was also mutilated, having lost a
leg. Bringing her home, I placed her amid a number of working-bees
recovered from drowning also by means of warmth. No sooner did the
revived workers perceive the queen in her miserable plight, than they
appeared to compassionate her, and continued to lick her with their
tongues until she showed signs of returning vitality, when they set up
a general hum as of joy at the event."