This circumstance was witnessed at the suburban retreat of a man of consular dignity near Rome, whose hives were made of transparent lantern horn: the young were found to be developed in the space of forty-five days. In some combs, there is found what is known by the name of “nail” wax;[58] it is bitter and hard, and is only met with when the bees have failed to hatch their young, either from disease or a natural sterility, it is the abortion, in fact, of the bees. The young ones, the moment they are hatched, commence working with their parents, as though in a course of training, and the newly-born king is accompanied by a multitude of his own age. That the supply may not run short, each swarm rears several kings; but afterwards, when this progeny begins to arrive at a mature age, with one accord[59] they put to death the inferior ones, lest they should create discord in the swarm.[60] There are two sorts of king bees; those of a reddish colour are better than the black and mottled ones. The kings have always a peculiar form of their own, and are double the size of any of the rest; their wings are shorter[61] than those of the others, their legs are straight, their walk more upright, and they have a white spot on the forehead, which bears some resemblance to a diadem: they differ, too, very much from the rest of the community, in their bright and shining appearance. CHAP. 17. (17.)—THE MODE OF GOVERNMENT OF THE BEES. Let a man employ himself, forsooth, in the enquiry whether there has been only one Hercules, how many fathers Liber there have been, and all the other questions which are buried deep in the mould of antiquity! Here behold a tiny object, one to be met with at most of our country retreats, and numbers of which are always at hand, and yet, after all, it is not agreed among authors whether or not the king[62] is the only one among them that is provided with no sting, and is possessed of no other arms than those afforded him by his majestic office, or whether Nature has granted him a sting, and has only denied him the power of making use of it; it being a well-known fact, that the ruling bee never does use a sting. The obedience which his subjects manifest in his presence is quite surprising. When he goes forth, the whole swarm attends him, throngs about him, surrounds him, protects him, and will not allow him to be seen. At other times, when the swarm is at work within, the king is seen to visit the works, and appears to be giving his encouragement, being himself the only one that is exempt from work: around him are certain other bees which act as body-guards and lictors, the careful guardians of his authority. The king never quits the hive except when the swarm is about to depart; a thing which may be known a long time beforehand, as for some days a peculiar buzzing noise is to be heard within, which denotes that the bees are waiting for a favourable day, and making all due preparations for their departure. On