The neuters or workers are, as it were, emanations of the queen, or the organs whereby her several functions as a mother are performed, considering the species as restricted to two sexes, and thus they comprise with her, collectively, one organic whole. That this is a consistent view of their condition is further proved by the circumstance that from their larvæ, upon the failure of a queen, a new queen is produced upon one being supplied with a certain nutriment that developes the capacity that would remain inert and abortive, were it not thus promoted from its primary state. It may be questioned whether the eggs deposited by the queen in the royal cells are other than neuter eggs, their subsequent nature being changed by the different quality of the sustenance they are fed with when hatched, as is the case in the above noticed defection of a queen. This then would limit the queen’s eggs to the eggs of neuters and of drones, thus further corroborating the idea of the existence of but two sexes.
I have stated above the supposition that the queen’s office may be restricted to the laying of eggs, but it must be inferred that it has a wider compass, and possibly comprises some administrative function in the regulation of the hive, from the circumstance that with her loss the entire community loses its self-possession and self-control. Labour then ceases and the hive becomes the scene of turmoil and confusion, and unless the loss be repaired in the way named above, which their instinct teaches them to adopt, if any eggs have been already deposited, or if supplied by the surreptitious introduction of another queen which they immediately raise to their superintendency, paying her the same deference they had done to their lost monarch, or would do to a legitimately native birth, it disperses and destroys the community. Such a loss in its natural course must necessarily, to be effectively repaired, take place in the interval after the laying of the drones’ eggs, and before those of the queens are deposited, for otherwise she would remain unimpregnated. Having thus shown reasons for supposing that the hive actually contains but two sexes, and having also shown that the first phase exhibited of this distributed maternal instinct by which the neuters form conjunctively with the queen a many-headed and many-hearted mother, is their preparation of the cells for all the purposes required,—the next and most important, and the one perhaps which elevates them vastly higher in the scale of social intelligence and affection, is the absolute development in them only of maternal solicitude for the well-being of the offspring. This certainly proves the existence of the diffused maternity urged, for they feed the hatched young as the bird does its callow, from hour to hour, and which, when full grown, they enclose in its formative cell, to undergo its changes and become one amongst themselves. It is not absolutely determined whether the functions performed within the hive are restricted to distinct sets of the workers, but it may be presumed that the duties are transferable, for the most plausible supposition is, that all the offices are interchangeably performed by the entire population, possibly merely limited to daily alternation of individuals taled off each morning for the day’s duties. That an administrative regulation must exist under some executive authority, emanating doubtless from the centralization of all in the queen, and communicated to the rest by her relays of attendants, may be conclusively inferred, otherwise all might similarly employ themselves from day to day, and thus overwhelm with one work the multiplicity of labours required for the well-being of the hive. For whilst some are secreting the wax from the honey they have consumed, others are moulding it into shape, others are harvesting the bee-bread to feed the voracious larvæ, others are gleaning the propolis for the security of the domicile, others are collecting honey to store as needful supplies, others are either ventilating or heating the interior, others act as sentinels and guard the approaches or patrol the passages within, and will die in that defence like genuine patriots, and others are in attendance upon the queen in her progresses through her dominions, and who may individually act as _aides-de-camp_ to convey her commands to the rest. All these are not fanciful embellishments of the narrative, but substantial and well-authenticated facts, supported by the repetition on many sides of careful observations, but perplexing to human intelligence, for not the least wonder of this conventicle of wonders—the hive—is that it confounds the astute reason of man to comprehend it in all its significancies.