"You are disloyal subjects, who are not worth ruling over. I won't stay here an hour longer, but I will go out into the world and build a new nest. Are there any of you who will come with me?"
Some of the old Bees, who had been Grubs at the same time as the Queen, declared that they would follow her. And soon after they flew away.
"Now we have no Queen," said the others, "we must take good care of the Princesses." And so they crammed them with honey from morning till night; and they grew, and grabbed, and squabbled, and made more noise each day than the day before.
As for the little Grub, no one gave a single thought to her.
One morning the doors of the Princesses' chambers flew open, and all ten of them stepped out, beautiful full-grown Queen Bees. The other Bees ran up and gazed at them in admiration. "How pretty they are!" they said. "It is hard to say which is the most beautiful."
"I am!" one cried.
"You make a mistake," said another, and stabbed her with her sting.
"You are rather conceited," shrieked a third. "I imagine that I am rather prettier than you are." And immediately they all began calling out at once, and soon after began to fight with one another as hard as ever they could.
The Bees would have liked to separate them, but the old head Bee
Nurse said to them,—"Let them go on fighting; then we shall see
which of them is the strongest, and we will choose her to be our
Queen. We can't do with more than one."
At this the Bees formed round in a ring and looked on at the battle. It lasted a long time, and it was fiercely fought. Wings and legs which had been bitten off were flying about in the air, and after some time eight of the Princesses lay dead upon the ground. The two last were still fighting. One of them had lost all her wings, and the other had only four legs left.