r one who
has seen this fierce and fell fury so prettily and quietly behaved, it
is pardonable to claim an equal amount of moderation for the sweeter and
purer nature of the little honey-maker, who has learned his gentler
manners of the flowers themselves. There are occasions, moreover, when
the bees positively forget they have a sting at all, as when, in
swarming, they are so entirely absorbed that they may be lifted in
handfuls. M. Lombard states the circumstance of a child's being cured of
her fear of the sting by an experience of this season. "A swarm having
left a hive, I observed the queen alight by herself, at a little
distance from the apiary. I immediately called my little friend, that I
might show her this important personage. She was anxious to have a
nearer view of Her Majesty; and therefore, having first caused her to
draw on her gloves, I gave the queen into her hand. Scarcely had I done
so, when we were surrounded by all the bees of the swarm. In this
emergency, I encouraged the trembling girl to be steady, and to fear
nothing, remaining myself close by her, and covering her head and
shoulders with a thin handkerchief. I then made her stretch out the hand
that held the queen, and the bees instantly alighted on it, and hung
from her fingers as from the branch of a tree. The little girl,
experiencing no injury, was delighted above measure at the novel sight,
and so entirely freed from all fear that she bade me uncover her face.
The spectators were charmed at the interesting spectacle. I at length
brought a hive, and, shaking the swarm from the child's hand, it was
lodged in safety without inflicting a single sting."

But however greatly opinions may vary in this branch of natural history
on one or another topic, the principal dispute is concerning the
relations that may subsist between the queen and the drones. Huber had a
complicated arrangement in reference to this, which his admirers
accepted enthusiastically, while Latreille and other apiarists reject it
as a cluster of prurient fancies. The opinion of Huish upon the subject,
which would seem to have more probability to support it than others
have, is that the queen commences to lay immediately on being
established, and that the eggs being in their separate cells, it is the
office of the drone to make them fruitful, after the custom of certain
fish and of frogs.

"When the population of the hive has been so increased by the opening of
the brood-cells