BEE. 437 



Five were then removed from those cells, and five common worms, 

 which, forty-eight hours before, we had seen come from the egg 9 

 substituted for them. The bees did not seem aware of the change ; 

 they watched over the new worms the same as over those chosen 

 by themselves ; they continued enlarging the cells, and closed them 

 at the usual time. When they had brooded on them (for such, 

 seems to be M. Huber's opinion) for seven days, we removed the 

 cells, to see the queens that were to be produced. Two were ex, 

 eluded, almost at the same moment, of the largest size, and well 

 formed in every respect. The term of the other cells having elaps- 

 ed, and no queen appearing, we opened them. In one was a dead 

 queen, but still a nymph : the other two were empty. The worms 

 had spun their silk coccoons, but died before passing into their 

 nymphine state, and presented only a dry skin. I can conceive 

 nothing more conclusive than this experiment. It demonstrates 

 that bees have the power of converting worms of workers into 

 queens, since they succeeded in procuring queens by operating on 

 the worms which we ourselves had selected. It is equally demon- 

 strated, that the success of the operation does not depend on the 

 worms being three days old, as those entrusted to the bees were 

 only two." 



He mentions another experiment, by which it appears, that lar- 

 ves, only a few hours old (as already hinted) are sometimes des- 

 tined to replace a lost queen. 



M. Huber next relates some experiments which confirm the sin- 

 gular discovery of M. Riems, concerning the existence, occasion- 

 ally, of common working bees that are capable of laying eggs, 

 which, we may remark, is certainly a most convincing proof of 

 their being of the female sex. Eggs were observed to increase in 

 number daily, in a hive in which there were no queens of the usual 

 appearance ; but small queens considerably resemble workers, 

 and to discriminate them required minute inspection. ** My as- 

 sistant," says M. Huber, " then offered to perform an operation 

 that required both courage and patience, and which I could not 

 resolve to suggest, though the same expedient had occurred to my- 

 self. He proposed to examine each bee in the hive separately, to 

 discover whether some small queen had not insinuated herself 

 among them, and escaped our first researches. It was necessary, 

 thereforej to seize every one of the bees, notwithstanding their 



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