4:0 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



had been present, by which the drone-eggs had been 

 deposited. 



Another interesting fact proves that all the eggs laid 

 by this queen were drone-eggs. Two of the royal cells 

 were in a short time discontinued; while a third was 

 sealed over in the usual way, to undergo its changes to a 

 perfect queen. As the bees had only a drone-laying queen, 

 whence came the female egg from which they were rear- 

 ing a queen ? 



At first I imagined that they might have stolen it from 

 another hive ; but on opening this cell it contained only a 

 dead drone ! Huber had described a similar mistake made 

 by some of his bees. At the base of this cell was an unu- 

 sual quantity of the peculiar jelly fed to develop young 

 queens. One might almost imagine that the bees had 

 dosed the unfortunate drone to death ; as though they 

 hoped by such liberal feeding to produce a change in his 

 sexual organization. 



In the Summer of 1854, 1 found another drone-laying 

 queen in my Apiary, with wings so shrivelled that she 

 could not fly. I gave her successively to several queen- 

 less colonies, in all of which she deposited only drone-eggs. 



On the 14th of July, 1855, a queen in one of my observ- 

 ing-hives began to lay, when nine days old, a few eggs on 

 the edges of the combs, instead, of in the cells. She per- 

 sisted in this for some days, until I transferred her to a 

 colony which had been queenless for some weeks, hoping 

 that she might, if unimpregnated, make an excursion from 

 their hive to meet the drones. The observing-hive hi 

 which she was hatched was exposed to the full light of 

 day ; the entrance small, and difficult to find ; and I had 

 noticed on several occasions, that when the drones left the 

 hive in the greatest numbers, the queen seemed unable to 

 find her way out. At such times she manifested 'unusual 



