A number of instances could be given of the absolute devotion that the workers show for their queen. Should a disaster fall on the city; should the hive or the comb collapse; should the bees suffer from hunger, from cold or disease, and die in their thousands, the queen will nearly always be found, alive and safe, beneath the bodies of her faithful daughters. They may be relied on to protect her, and help her to escape; they will keep for her the last drop of honey, the last morsel of food. And be the disaster never so great, they will not lose heart so long as the queen be alive. You may break their comb twenty times in succession, twenty times take from them their young and their food, you will still never succeed in making them despair of the future. Though they be starving, and so few in number that they scarcely can conceal their mother from the enemy's gaze, they will set about to start the city again and to provide for what is most pressing. They will quietly accept the new conditions, and divide the work between them in accordance with these conditions; they will take up their labors again with extraordinary patience, and zeal, and intelligence. "I have come across a colony of bees," says Langstroth, "that was not sufficiently large to cover a comb of three inches square, and yet they tried to rear a queen. For two whole weeks did these bees cherish their hope. Finally, when their number was reduced by a half, their queen was born, but her wings were imperfect, and she was unable to fly. Incomplete as she was, her bees did not treat her with less respect. Another week, and scarcely a dozen remained alive; a few days more, and the queen had vanished, leaving only a few wretched, inconsolable insects mourning for her on the comb." I have more than once had queens sent to me from Italy, for the Italian species is stronger, more active and gentler than our own. It is the custom to forward them in small boxes, with holes made in the top so as to let in the air. In these boxes, some food is placed, and the queen put in, together with a certain number of workers, who are selected as far as possible from among the oldest bees in the hive. (The age of the bee can easily be told by its body, which becomes more polished, thinner and almost bald as it grows older; and more particularly by the wings, which the hard work uses and tears.) It is the mission of these worker-bees to feed the queen during the journey, to tend her and guard her. I would frequently find, when the box arrived, that nearly every one of the workers had died. On one occasion, indeed, they had all perished of hunger; but in this instance, as in all others, the queen was alive, unharmed and full of strength. The last of her companions had probably died in the act of presenting the last drop of honey she held in her sac to the queen, who was the emblem of a life more precious and more sacred than her own.