If, before substituting the stranger queen, twenty-four hours elapse, she will be well received, and reign from the moment of her introduction into the hive. Here I speak of the good reception given to a queen after an interregnum of twenty-four hours. But as this word reception is very indefinite, it is proper to enter into some detail for explaining the exact sense in which I use it. On the 15. of August, I introduced a fertile queen, eleven months old, into a glass hive. The bees were twenty-four hours deprived of their queen, and had already begun the construction of twelve royal-cells, such as described in the preceding chapter. Immediately on placing this female stranger on the comb, the workers near her touched her with their antennae, and, passing their trunks over every part of her body, they gave her honey. Then these gave place to others that treated her exactly in the same manner. All vibrated their wings at once, and ranged themselves in a circle around their sovereign. Hence resulted a kind of agitation which gradually communicated to the workers situated on the same surface of the comb, and induced them to come and reconnoitre, in their turn, what was going on. They soon arrived; and, having broke through the circle formed by the first, approached the queen, touched her with the antennae, and gave her honey. After this little ceremony they retired; and, placing themselves behind the others, enlarged the circle. There they vibrated their wings, and buzzed without tumult or disorder, and as if experiencing some very agreeable sensation. The queen had not yet moved from the place where I had put her, but in a quarter of an hour she began to move. The bees, far from opposing her, opened the circle at that part to which she turned, followed her, and formed a guard around. She was oppressed with the necessity of laying, and dropped eggs. Finally, after four hours abode, she began to deposit male eggs in the cells she met. While these events passed on the surface of the comb where the queen stood, all was quiet on the other side. Here the workers were apparently ignorant of a queen's arrival in the hive. They laboured with great activity at the royal cells, as if ignorant that they no longer stood in need of them: they watched over the royal worms, supplied them with jelly and the like. But the queen having at length come to this side, she was received with the same respect that she had experienced from their companions on the other side of the comb. They encompassed her; gave her honey; and touched her with their antennae: and what proved better that they treated her as a mother, was their immediately desisting from work at the royal cells; they removed the worms, and devoured the food collected around them. From this moment the queen was recognised by all her people, and conducted herself in this new habitation as if it had been her native hive.