440 INSECTS. 



It is said that the royal jelly, when pure, may be known by its 

 pungent taste, but when mixed with other substances, it is not 

 easily distinguished. M. Huber repeatedly tried to feed some of 

 the larves of workers in other parts of the hive with the royal 

 jelly, in order to observe the consequences ; but he found this to 

 be a vain attempt, the bees immediately destroying such worms, 

 and themselves devouring the food. It has not therefore been 

 directly ascertained, that all fertile workers proceed from larves 

 that have received portions of the royal food ; but M. Huber ob- 

 served, that they were uniformly such as had passed the vermi- 

 cular state, in cells contiguous to the royal ones. a The bees," 

 he remarks, " in their course thither, will pass in numbers over 

 them, stop, and drop some portion of the jelly destined for the 

 royal larves.'' This reasoning, though not conclusive, is plausi- 

 ble. The result is so uniform, that M. Huber says he can, when- 

 ever he pleases, produce fertile workers in his hives. They are 

 probably, he adds, always produced, in greater or less numbers, 

 whenever the bees have to create to themselves a new queen ; and 

 the reason that they are so seldom seen, probably is, that the 

 queen bees attack and destroy them without mercy, whenever they 

 perceive them. 



When a supernumerary queen is produced in a hive, or is in- 

 troduced into it in the course of experiment, either she or the 

 rightful owner soon perishes. The German naturalists, Schirach 

 and Riems, imagined that the working bees assailed the stranger, 

 and stung her to death. Reaumur considered it as more pro- 

 bable, that the sceptre was made to depend on the issue of a single 

 combat between the claimants; and this conjecture is verified by 

 the observations of Huber. The same hostility towards rivals, 

 and destructive vengeance against royal cells, animates all queens, 

 whether they be virgins, or in a state of impregnation, or mothers 

 of numerous broods. The working-bees, it may here be remark- 

 ed, remain quiet spectators of the destruction, by the first-hatched 

 queen, of the remaining royal cells; they approach only to share 

 in the plunder presented by their havock-making mistress, greedily 

 devouring any food found at the bottom of the cells, and even 

 sucking the fluid from the abdomen of the nymphs before they 

 toss out the carcass. 



