The complete subjection of the mother-bee to the ruling worker-class in the hive receives here a striking confirmation. She is a true exemplar of a prevailing kind of femininity—comely of person, untutored in mind, an inveterate stay-at-home, a prolific mother; and now there awakens in her the sounding chord of jealousy. Left free to act on her own impulses, she would soon bring about a speedy end to all the careful, long-sighted preparations within the hive. She would tear open each royal cell, and with one thrust of the curved, cruel scimitar that queen-bees use only on their equals in rank, its occupant would be ruthlessly despatched, and her own supremacy reinstated. But an impassable barrier stops the way—the collective will of the hive. The violent delight of killing has once been hers; she will never know it again. Now her own fate is in the balance. It may be death, or a new life in a new home: all depends on the deliberate decree of those who have made her, and who now use or discard her, for their own purposes. If it be late spring, and the condition of the stock warrant it, this governing spirit may decide for colonisation, and the old queen may be disposed of by sending her off with a swarm. But other counsels may prevail. The times may be unripe, or the weather inopportune. And then Fate, in the shape of a merciless application of principles, will descend upon her, and her own wise children will ruthlessly put her to death. This State-execution of the queen, at the first sign of waning fertility, is a peculiarly pathetic as well as a tragic phase of bee-life. The stern, soured amazons of the hive must have their systems and conventions in everything they undertake; and they cannot even bring about the supersession of the old queen without due circumstance and ceremonial. Given that it would be against the best interests of the common weal that she should retain her life after the loss of her queenhood, one swift stroke would immediately determine the matter, and the law—that there shall be no useless members in the bee-republic—would have its due fulfilment. But old tradition rules that the queen shall suffer no violence from the weapons of the common herd. She is to die, but her death must be brought about in another way. And so the fawning executioners gather round her, locking her in an embrace that tightens with every moment, until the breath is literally hugged out of her body. All her life has been spent in the midst of caresses, and now she is to die of them, close held to the last in that silent, terrible grip. CHAPTER VIII THE BRIDE-WIDOW IN the heat and glow of the fine June morning you may see her, the young virgin queen, making ready for her nuptial flight.