GOVERNMENT OF WASPS AND BEES. 315 



violently away by the workers ; but at every repulse 

 from the cells of her rivals, she appeared sulky and 

 cried peep, peep, one of the unhatched queens re- 

 sponding, though in a somewhat harsher tone ; a 

 circumstance which explains the two different sounds 

 heard prior to the issuing of second swarms. On 

 the afternoon of the second day, another queen was 

 hatched, and was immediately surrounded by a 

 cluster of bees. Next morning Mr. D unbar found 

 her dying, having no doubt been slain by her rival. 

 Contrary to the statements of Huber, therefore, Mr. 

 Dunbar found that the artificial queens are surround- 

 ed by a guard, and that they are not mute*. 



Bonnet, to whom Schirach communicated his ex- 

 periments, remained long unconvinced, as well as 

 Wilhelmi, Schirach' s brother-in-law; but the uniform 

 success of the experiment made them ultimately re- 

 nounce their scepticism. Bonnet, also, was successful 

 in repeating it f ; and Mr. Payne, of Shipham, in 

 Norfolk, told Kirby that he accidentally observed the 

 bees of one of his hives, which had lost their queen, 

 erecting some royal cells on the ruins of the common 

 ones. Their usual mode of proceeding, indeed, is 

 to throw three contiguous common cells into one, 

 two of the three grubs which occupy them being 

 sacrificed, and the remaining one liberally fed with 

 royal jelly. This is a pungent food, prepared by the 

 workers exclusively for the purpose of feeding such 

 of the grubs as are destined for queens. It is not 

 so mawkish and is more stimulating than the food 

 given to the common grubs, having a perceptibly 

 spicy acescent taste. " It does not appear to me 

 improbable," says Bonnet, " that a certain kind of 

 nutriment, and in more than usual abundance, may 

 cause a development, in the grubs of bees, of organs 



* Bevan on Bees, p. 22. 

 f Contertipl. de la Nature, (uvres,ix.27. 



