As many persons doubt _the queen's importance_ to the harmonious union of a swarm, I shall give an instance or two, to show how essentially necessary her presence is to produce this effect. +Dr. Warder+ being desirous of ascertaining the extent of the bees' "loyalty to their sovereign, ran the hazard of destroying a swarm, for this purpose." Having shaken on the grass, all the bees from a hive which they had only tenanted the day before, he searched for the queen, by stirring amongst them with a stick. Having found and placed her, with a few attendants, in a box, she was taken into his parlour; where the box being opened, she and her attendants immediately flew to the window, when he clipped off one of her wings, returned her to the box, and confined her there for above an hour. In less than a quarter of an hour, the swarm ascertained the loss of their queen, and instead of clustering together in one social mass, they diffused themselves over a space of several feet, were much agitated, and uttered a piteous sound. An hour afterwards they all took flight, and settled upon the hedge where they had first alighted, after leaving the parent stock; but instead of hanging together, like a bunch of grapes, as when the queen was with them, and as swarms usually hang, they extended themselves thirty feet along the hedge, in small bunches, of forty, fifty, or more. The queen was now presented to them, when they all quickly gathered round her, with a joyful hum, and formed one harmonious cluster. At night the Doctor hived them again, and on the following morning repeated his experiment, to see whether the bees would rise; the queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accompany them, they surrounded her for several hours, apparently willing to die with her rather than desert her in distress. The queen was a second time removed, when they spread themselves out again, as though starching for her: her repeated restoration to them, at different parts of their circle, produced one uniform result, "and these poor loyal and loving creatures, always marched and counter-marched every way as the queen was laid." The Doctor persevered in these experiments, till after five days and nights of fasting, they all died of famine, except the queen, who lived a few hours longer and then died. _The attachment of the queen to the working bees_, appeared to be equally as strong as their attachment to her; though offered honey on several occasions, during the periods of her separation from them, she constantly refused it, "disdaining a life that was no life to her, without the company of those which she could not have."