Two or three prominent characteristics serve readily to distinguish the queen from the rest of the bees. In the first place, her body is much longer and more tapering towards its lower extremity. Her wings are shorter in comparison with her length. The upper surface of her body is of a darker and more glossy hue than that of her subjects. Her movements are slower and less anxious in appearance than those of the workers, except at swarming time, when excitement quickens her steps, and gives' her an air of purposeless solicitude; though, in reality, her anxiety is caused by the desire to slay a royal and rival daughter, whose co-existence in the hive she cannot tolerate. A closer examination reveals several other points of difference. In our English species, of which we are now especially speaking, her colour is yellowish underneath; her head is rounder, her legs are longer, her tongue is more slender and not so extensile as that of the other bees; and her sting is curved instead of being straight, like the formidable weapon of the workers. It is asserted by some writers that she has a peculiar odour readily distinguishable, and so powerfully attractive to her people, that they will alight on the finger of any one who has been handling their queen. [Illustration: Fig. 6.--The Queen of the Hive.] Several characteristics of a negative kind may also be noted. Her proboscis is not fitted for extracting the nectar of flowers, and she can only lap food, or take it from the tongues of her attendants. She, moreover has no expansion of the gullet for a honey-bag, since she never requires to collect and carry home the sweet liquid. She possesses no cysts for the elaboration of wax, as she takes no part in contributing to the materials of her dwelling. The last pair of legs are convex on the outside, containing no pocket for carrying pollen or propolis; and the other legs are without the brushes of the workers, which enable them to clear their bodies of the powdery discharge of the anthers of flowers, for she never visits plants. All her wants in the way of nourishment are supplied by her subjects. [Illustration: Fig. 7.--Queen Surrounded by Attendants. The Queen, or Mother-Bee, as in nature, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, and exhibited in a glass hive to the royal visitors at the British Bee-Keepers' Association Show at Kilburn, 1879, by Abbott Bros., Southall.]