The breathing system of the honey-bee is closely connected with her sound-organs. Anyone asked to describe the note made by a bee would probably say that she hums or buzzes, and there would be an end to most ideas on the matter. But to the beeman this is a pitifully inadequate statement of the truth. The bee comprises in herself not one, but a whole choir of voices, and she has a compass of at least an octave and a half. Every one of her fourteen spiracles, and each of her wings, is capable of producing sound; and these sounds can be endlessly varied in quality, intensity, and pitch. It is no exaggeration to say that the honey-bee is as accomplished a musician as any bird; but as each individual voice is for the most part lost in the general symphony of the hive, it is difficult to get a complete idea of her capabilities as a soloist. The voice-apparatus in the spiracles is one of the most intricate things in the whole anatomy of the bee. It has a multiplicity of parts, and is obviously designed to convey a great variety of sounds. The wings also produce tones that run up or down in the scale, according to their rate of oscillation; and from them comes the sibilant note usually called buzzing. Listening to the hive-music at any season of the year, it is impossible to resist the thought that bees not only hold individual communication by means of these infinitely varied sounds, but that the general note given out by the multitude unerringly expresses the state of affairs within the hive for the time being. A prosperous stock voices its busy contentment in a way impossible to misunderstand. It is a deep, blithe, resonant sound, like the steady running of well-oiled machinery, each wheel adding its own whirring melody to the general theme. Weak or famishing colonies give out a wavering, intermittent note, the very voice of complaint and fear for the future. When a hive has lost its queen, a capable bee-master should have no difficulty in divining the trouble by listening at the hive-entrance. A queenless stock is all clamour and the hubbub of divided counsels. The ordinary rich reverberation of labour stops, and a sound of panic goes to and fro in the hive unceasingly. If a hive be quietly opened, and its queen removed with little disturbance, it may be some time before the bees discover their loss. Some colonies experimented with in this way realise their deprivation immediately, and the hue-and-cry begins at once. But one of the most curious facts in bee-life is the variation in intelligence, and alertness of perception, between the different hives. A steady-going, dull race may be a considerable time before it perceives the absence of its queen. The common note of work goes on unchanged until the fact dawns on it. And then the peculiar shrill outcry commences, overpowering all other sounds until reason again asserts itself in the colony, and the bees set about the work of raising another queen.