All the bees in the hive have a common parentage,
and the queen and the worker are the same in the egg and in the chick; the
patent of royalty is in the cell and in the food; the cell being much
larger, and the food a peculiar stimulating kind of jelly. In certain
contingencies, such as the loss of the queen with no eggs in the royal
cells, the workers take the larva of an ordinary bee, enlarge the cell by
taking in the two adjoining ones, and nurse it and stuff it and coddle it,
till at the end of sixteen days it comes out a queen. But ordinarily, in
the natural course of events, the young queen is kept a prisoner in her
cell till the old queen has left with the swarm. Not only kept, but
guarded against the mother queen, who only wants an opportunity to murder
every royal scion in the hive. Both the queens, the one a prisoner and the
other at large, pipe defiance at each other at this time, a shrill, fine,
trumpetlike note that any ear will at once recognize. This challenge, not
being allowed to be accepted by either party, is followed, in a day or
two, by the abdication of the old queen; she leads out the swarm, and her
successor is liberated by her keepers, who, in her turn, abdicates in
favor of the next younger. When the bees have decided that no more swarms
can issue, the reigning queen is allowed to use her stiletto upon her
unhatched sisters. Cases have been known where two queens issued at the
same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged by the workers, who
formed a ring about them, but showed no preference, and recognized the
victor as the lawful sovereign.
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