“There is always the possibility that the queen, at a time when she is reigning alone and supreme, may perish by accident or die of old age. The bees press respectfully around the deceased; they brush her tenderly, offer her honey as if to revive her; turn her over, feel her lovingly, and treat her with all the regard they gave to her when alive. It takes several days for them to understand, at last, that she is dead, quite dead, and that all their attentions are useless. Then there is general mourning. Every evening for two or three days a lugubrious humming, a sort of funeral dirge, is heard in the hive. “The mourning over, they think about replacing the queen. A young larva is chosen from those in the common cells. It was born to be a wax-bee, but circumstances are going to confer royalty upon it. The working-bees begin by destroying the cells adjacent to the one occupied by the sacred larva, the queen that is to be by unanimous consent. The rearing of royalty requires more space. This being secured, the remaining cell is enlarged and shaped like a thimble, as willed by the high destiny of the nursling it contains. For several days the larva is fed with royal paste, that sugary pap that makes queens, and the miracle is accomplished. The queen is dead, long live the queen!” “The story of the bees is the best you have told us,” declared Jules. “I think so too,” his uncle assented; “that is why I kept it till the last.” “What—the last?” cried Jules. “You are not going to tell us any more stories?” asked Claire. “Never, never?” Emile put in. “As many as you wish, my dear children, but later. The grain is ripe, and the harvest will take up my time. Let us embrace, and finish for the present.” Since Uncle Paul, occupied with his duties in the harvest-field, no longer tells stories in the evening, Emile has gone back to his Noah’s Ark. He found the hind and the elephant moldy! From the time of the story of the ants the child had suspended his visits. FINIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. ○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text in italics is enclosed in underscores (_italics_). End of Project Gutenberg's The Story-book of Science, by Jean-Henri Fabre