318 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



following^ morning, being- the fourth from her intro- 

 duction, we counted fifty minute worms, the oldest 

 scarcely hatched twenty-four hours. Already, how- 

 ever, several were destined for queens, indicated by 

 the bees depositing around them a much more 

 abundant provision of food than is ever supplied to 

 the grubs of workers. Next day, the grubs being 

 then nearly forty hours old, the bees had enlarged 

 their cells, and had converted them from the hexa- 

 gonal to the cylindrical form of greater capacity. 

 They continued their attention to them during the 

 succeeding days, and on the fifth from the hatching 

 of the grubs they closed them. Seven days after the 

 first of these royal cells had been closed, a queen of 

 the largest size issued from it, and immediately rush- 

 ing towards the other cells, endeavoured to destroy 

 their nymphs and grubs *." 



It appears that the cells of workers, which are 

 contiguous to royal cells, frequently, if not always, 

 produce workers capable of laying eggs, — the cir- 

 cumstance arising, it is supposed, from their re- 

 ceiving by accident a portion of the royal jelly. 

 Huber, indeed, ascertained this from several experi- 

 ments ; and he also found the queen to attack these 

 fertile workers with as much fury as she w^ould have 

 done a rival queen f. 



From all these details it is evident that the only 

 attention, homage, and respect, paid by bees to 

 their queen arises from the affection they have for 

 her progeny. In order to ascertain the extent of the 

 loyalty of the bees to their sovereign, Dr. Warder 

 ran the hazard of destroying a whole swarm. With 

 this view, having shaken on the grass all the bees 

 from a hive where they had only been settled on the 

 preceding day, he stirred them about with a stick till 

 he found the queen, whom he placed, with a few? 

 * On Bces^ p. G9. f Ibid. Letter v. 



