PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 127 



Reaumur's curiosity was excited to know the weight 

 of bees ; and he found that 336 weighed an ounce, and 

 5376 a pound. According to John Hunter, an ale-house 

 pint contains 2160 workers. 



I have described to you the persons of the different in- 

 dividuals that compose the society of the bee-hive more 

 in detail than I should otherwise have done, in order that 

 you may be the better able to form a judgement upon a 

 most extraordinary circumstance in their history, which 

 is supported by evidence that seems almost incontroverti- 

 ble. The fact to which I allude is this — that if the bees 

 are deprived of their queen, and are supplied with comb 

 containing young worker brood only, they will select one 

 or more to be educated as queens ; which, by having a 

 royal cell erected for their habitation, and being fed with 

 royal jelly for not more than two days, when they emerge 

 from the pupa state (though, if they had remained in the 

 cells which they originally inhabited, tliey would have 

 turned out workers) will come forth complete queens, 

 with their form, instincts, and powers of generation en- 

 tirely different. In order to produce this effect, the grub 

 must not be more than three days old ; and this is the age 

 at which, according to Schirach, (the first apiarist who 

 called the public attention to this miracle of nature,) the 

 bees usually elect the larvae to be royally educated; 

 though it appears from Ruber's observations, that a larva 

 two days or even twenty-four hours old will do ^. — 

 Having chosen a grub, they remove the inhabitants and 

 their food from two of the cells which join that in which 

 it resides ; they next take down the partitions which se- 

 jiarate these three cells; and, leaving the bottoms un- 



' II liber, i. 137. 



