Dave wrote:

>Read Maeterlink's "The Life of the Bee"
>
>He answered the age old question does the queen sjit in the hive?
>
>its now actually in the public domain and available on-line at
>http://www.eldritchpress.org/mm/b.html

        I must object to this advice.  The question posed is a technical
matter of fact, and obviously difficult to answer.   I love Maeterlinck, as
literature; but as technical info it is way out of date.  When he wrote,
many of the main facts on the life of the bee had not been discovered, much
less a tricky item so difficult to observe as the queen's voiding.   MM is
NOT  an authority on this  -  he was just making it up!

R