THE BEE. 



sovereign. "We have already explained that there are certate 

 periods in the life of the queen, during which she produces eggs 

 of certain sorts, at one period those only of workers, at another 

 those only of drones. But if the epoch of her nuptials be post- 

 poned to a certain advanced period of life, at which, if we may 

 be allowed the expression, she begins to approach the condition 

 of an old maid, a singular change is found to have taken place in 

 her constitution, in consequence of which she is no longer capable 

 of having any but male ojfspritnj, in other words, she is incapable 

 of laying any but drone eggs. 



183. Now since such a queen is obviously incapable of discharg- 

 ing those functions, which are indispensable to the continuance of 

 the population over which she presides, and of whose young she 

 ought, in the ordinary course of nature, to be common mother, it 

 might be inferred that the instincts of the insects would lead 

 them to disembarrass themselves of a sovereign, incapable of 

 discharging the most important functions of her office, and to 

 substitute for her, as we know they always have the power to 

 do, one who should enjoy the plenitude of these functions. 



184. Among the innumerable experiments of Huber, those are not 

 least interesting which were directed to this point, that is to say, 

 to submit the faculties of the queen to tests supplied by artificial 

 means, contrived for placing her in social conditions, in which it 

 could scarcely ever happen that she should find herself in the 

 common course of bee-nature. 



The first question which suggested itself to the great naturalist, 

 was to ascertain whether queens, who thus married so late in life 

 as to have only drone offspring, would exhibit the same spirit 

 of jealous hostility towards the tenants of royal cells, and the 

 future aspirants to thrones, as is invariably manifested by younger 

 royal brides. To determine this it was necessary to place such a 

 queen in a queenless hive, in which, however, there was at least 

 one royal cell tenanted by a princess. Huber, therefore, placed the 

 queen, who had not married until she had bordered upon old 

 maidenhood, in a hive which had no queen, but in which there 

 was one royal cell occupied by a princess. The old bride, whose 

 nuptials had not been celebrated until she had attained the 

 twenty-eighth day of her age, laid nothing of course except drone 

 eggs. On being placed in the hive she exhibited none of the 

 usual signs of hostility against the royal cell. On the contrary, 

 she passed and repassed it many times a day without seeming to 

 take the least notice of it, or to distinguish it in any way from the 

 numerous cells which surrounded it on every side. In such of 

 these latter cells as were unoccupied she deposited eggs, and not- 

 withstanding the jealous guard which the workers kept around 

 92 



