148 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



male eggs in the month of May, she oviposits in the 

 royai cell^ when about three or four lines in length, 

 which the workers have in the mean time constructed. 

 These however are not all laid in one day, — a most 

 essential provision, in consequence of which they come 

 forth successively, in order to lead successive sw arms. 

 There is something singular in the manner in which 

 the workers treat the young queens that are to lead the 

 swarms. After the cells are covered in, one of their 

 first employments is to remove here and there a portion 

 of the wax from their surface, so as to render it un- 

 equal ; and immediately before the last metamorphosis 

 takes place, the walls are so thin that all the motions 

 of the inclosed pupa are perceptible through them. On 

 the seventh day the part covering the head and trunk 

 of the young female, if I may so speak, is almost en- 

 tirely unwaxed. This operation of the bees facilitates 

 her exit, and probably renders the evaporation of the 

 superabundant fluids of the body of the pupa more 

 easy. 



You will conclude, perhaps, when all things aro thus 

 prepared for the coming forth of the inclosed female, 

 that she will quit her cell at the regular period, which 

 is seven days : — but you would be mistaken. Were 

 8he indeed permitted to pursue her own inclinations, 

 this would be the ease : but here the bees show hor^- 

 much they are guided in their instinct by circumstances 

 and the wants of their society ; for did the new queen 

 leave her cell, she would immediately attack and destroy 

 those in the other cells; a proceeding which they per- 

 mit, as I have before stated, when they only want a 

 successor to a defunct or a lost sovereig,!!. As soon 



