In about three days, however, the young queen ventures abroad, timidly at first, to stretch her wings in the sunshine. She is preparing for the great moment of her life, the nuptial flight. So far, though drones may swarm on every side of her, no sign of recognition is given, nor do the males evince any consciousness of her presence. She behaves warily and demurely throughout. Her first excursions abroad are very brief; they are not so much trial flights, apparently, as efforts to locate the exact position of the hive in relation to the outer world. To this end the flights are rapidly extended in ever-widening circles, till at last, with lightning speed, she makes for the blue sky, to return to the gloom of the hive almost immediately after. During all this time the stimulus of sexual desire has been gathering force, and now, being no longer controllable, she darts off, and up into the sky; almost at once she is recognized by the swarms of males from neighbouring hives, some thousands in number, which for days have been seeking this event. Instantly they give eager chase, mounting after her higher and ever higher. But as they ascend so their numbers decrease. Some, the feeble, the ill-fed from impoverished hives, are speedily left behind; many endure to the end, but only one secures the prize, and this great moment of his life is also his last, for the fact of impregnation is no sooner completed than Death claims him. He falls earthwards, as if struck by lightning, and in his fall the intromittent organ is dragged from his body, to be removed by the survivor of this mad flight, on her descent. She leaves a bride and returns a widow, filled with murderous intentions. There are captive queens in the hive, and she can tolerate no rivals. So soon as she has removed from her person the embarrassing souvenir of her nuptial flight she makes for the Royal cells. Accompanied by attendant workers she proceeds to tear off their waxen coverings and put their occupants to death with a thrust of her stiletto. No sooner is the work of execution over than the dead bodies are seized by the workers and borne out of the hive. This awful task is soon over, however, and henceforth for four or five long years she remains a prisoner within the walls of her own palace. Craving neither the air nor the light of the sun, she will die without once having sipped the nectar from a flower. And during all this time, save during the winter sleep, her sole duty is to produce sons and daughters. In the prime of her maternity she may lay as many as three thousand eggs a day. But strangely enough the number of eggs produced is determined for her by the workers, who are the real rulers in this constitutional state. By varying the amount and quality of the food they give her they can increase or check the number of eggs produced; while even the sex of the resultant larva is apparently also under their control.