BEES. 37 



Gary, as it has to fill the cells with honey which it has fir.st 

 swallowed. It is also furnished with a pair of very ])ower 

 ful jaws, moving- laterally. These jaws are extensively 

 used in the architecture of the combs, and general economy 

 of the hive. Its sting* (which is described more largely 

 in another place) is straight. The most curious circum- 

 stance about the worker-bees is, that that they are all 

 undeveloped females, and can, when in their larva state, 

 be metamorphosed into queens. Now and then a worker- 

 bee becomes partly fertile ; but it never lays any but drone 

 og-gi:i. This partial fertility is probably occasioned by some 

 of the royal bee-bread dropping into the cells of those 

 worker-bees located near the royal cell. More probability 

 attaches itself to this theory from the circumstance, that 

 these fertile workers never appear except in hives where the 

 bees have lost their queen, and have been obliged to elevate 

 a worker larva to the regal throne. 



The question of the sex of the worker-bees was curiousiy 

 enough established by the dissections of a young lady, whose 

 loss is to be deplored by all naturaHsts, Mdlle. Jurine 

 From some cause or other, most probably from want of 

 equal skill, I have never been able to verif}^ her dissections 

 to my own satisfaction, the small masses, at firyt supposed 

 to be undeveloped ovaries, generally turning out, when e/.- 

 amined by the microscope, to be congeries of air-tubes. In 

 the museum of the College of Surgeons are several prepa- 

 rations, which are asserted to show the undeveloped ovaries 

 of the worker-bee. 



Look again into the hive. The queen is about to com- 

 mence her maternal labours in the deposition of eggs, fron. 

 which are to issue the future community, or possibly half-a- 

 dozen communities. To shut out from prying eyes, and 

 invest the whole affair with the solemnity and si)lendou! 

 befitting the occasion, a living curtain is formed impene- 

 trable to all but the most patient, skilful, and fortunate eyes. 

 The bees attach themselves to each other in the mode be- 

 fore pointed out ; but then the object was to form a ladder, 

 now it is a screen required. So they connect themselves 

 into a dense mass, a perfect " grape-like cluster, or living- 

 garland." This is done with such wonderful skill and 

 ease, that bees can fly off from the cluster, even from its 



