The old trite saying among beemen, that bees never do anything invariably, receives constant illustration in any near study of the ways of the honey-bee. It has been seen that a colony deprived of its queen, and having no worker-egg or grub less than three days old wherewith to make good its deficiency, is commonly doomed to early extinction. But, on rare occasions, colonies supposed to be in this plight will make an unexpected and inexplicable recovery. After a period of the doldrums, extending for three weeks or more, a sudden renewed activity and exhilaration is observable in the hive. The pollen-bearers, who have been hitherto almost idle, resume their busy work; and, on the hive being opened, all the evidences of the presence of a fertile, laying queen-mother are again to be seen. In many instances in which a new lease of life has thus been vouchsafed to a colony under what seems an inexorable ban, no doubt appearances have been deceptive. The bees may have discovered in their midst a worker-larva not yet too far advanced for promotion to queenship, and thus have achieved their salvation at the eleventh hour. But, in at least one case, the testimony against the possibility of this seems complete. A nucleus stock, containing only three or four small combs and only about five hundred bees, was deprived of its queen. Ten days later every queen-cell that had been formed in the interval was destroyed, leaving in the hive not a single egg or bee in the larval state. Nevertheless, on the hive being opened after a further period of eighteen days, one new queen-cell containing an egg was discovered. And this egg duly hatched out into a fine, well-developed queen-bee. Assuming the facts to be true, and they seem to be incontrovertible, there is only one inference to be drawn from this: some enterprising bee of the colony must have gone to another hive and either begged, borrowed, or stolen a worker-egg. Apiarian scientists very rightly hesitate to ascribe to the honey-bee surpassing ingenuity of this kind on the testimony of a single case, however well authenticated. But other instances are on record nearly as indubitable, and as it is an unquestioned fact that worker-bees will carry eggs about from comb to comb within the space of their own hive, it does not seem wholly incredible that they may visit other hives in the immediate neighbourhood, especially when impelled to extra resourcefulness by so vital a need. The whole question is interesting in more ways than one, as it seems to bear very trenchantly on the problem of “Reason versus Instinct,” now busy in the thoughts of most modern naturalists.