J. HUNTER ON THE QUEEN BEE. 129 



its j>assage, does not, either from volition, or inability of the queen, 

 receive impregnation, in this case it does not perish or addle, but 

 gives birth to a drone larva, and it has been conclusively proved 

 that the act of fertilization or not determines the sex of the future 

 bee. The egg being fertilized and deposited, it hatches in about 

 three days, and the young larva receives the careful attention of the 

 worker bees, who feed it with appropriate food, and in due time it 

 passes to the pupa state, on the 21st day becoming a worker bee, 

 but the same egg that produced the worker in 21 days could, had 

 the bees been so minded, have been bred up to a queen in 16 days. 

 The bees only rear queens when necessity calls for them, either from 

 loss of their old monarch or apprehended swarming. If I remove 

 the queen from a hive, the first of these contingencies occurs, and 

 after a period of a few hours' commotion, the bees select certain of 

 the worker eggs, or even young larva, two or three days old, the cell 

 is enlarged to five or six times its capacity, a superabundance of 

 totally different food supplied, and the result is that, in five less 

 days than would have been required for a worker, a queen is hatched. 

 The marvel is inexplicable, how a mere change and greater abun- 

 dance of food and a more roomy lodging, should so transform the 

 internal and external organs of any living creature. The case is 

 without a parallel in all the animal creation — it is not a mere super- 

 ficial change that has been effected, but one that penetrates far below 

 form and structure, to the very fountain of life itself. It is a 

 transformation alike of function, of structure, and of instinct. On 

 the birth of the queen, her wings are limp, and hairs clotted with 

 moisture, but she is in full activity, the workers assist in her release 

 from the wax-cell in which her transformation takes place, but they 

 pay very little or no attention to her so long as she remains a virgin. 

 The impregnation of the queen bee was long an enigma to 

 Naturalists ; some have denied that any intercourse with the male 

 was necessary for the fecundation of the eggs. Some supposed that 

 the effluvia arising from the males within the hive was sufficient for 

 this purpose. Maraldi thought the eggs were fecundated by the 

 drones after they were deposited, in the same way that the spawn of 

 fishes is fecundated ; but, from our extended means of observation, 

 we are no longer in any doubt as to the modus operandi. From 

 three to seven days after birth, the queen issues from the hive, on 

 nuptial thoughts intent, and after circling a few times round her 

 home, apparently taking its bearings, she flies away into space ; if 



