NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 63 



inferred from their being the center of so much attrac- 

 tion. 



While the other cells open sideways, the queen-cells 

 always hang with their mouth downwards. Some Apia- 

 rians think that this peculiar position affects, in some way, 

 the development of the royal Iarva3 ; while others, having 

 ascertained that they are uninjured if placed in any other 

 position, consider this deviation as among the inscrutable 

 mysteries of the bee-hive. So it seemed to me, until con- 

 vinced, by more careful observation, that they open down- 

 wards simply to save r<9om. The distance between the 

 parallel ranges of comb in the hive is usually too small for 

 the royal cells to open sideways, without interfering with 

 the opposite cells. To economize space, the bees put 

 them on the unoccupied edges of the comb, where there 

 is plenty of room for such very large cells. 



The number of royal cells in a hive varies greatly ; 

 sometimes there are only two or three, ordinarily not less 

 than five ; and occasionally, more than a dozen. As it is 

 not intended that the young queens should all be of the 

 same age, the royal cells are not all begun at the same 

 tune. It is not fully settled how the eggs are deposited 

 in these cells. In some few instances, I have thought that 

 the bees transferred the eggs from common to queen-cells ; 

 and this may be their general method of procedure. . I 

 shall hazard the conjecture, that, in a crowded state of the 

 hive, the queen deposits her eggs in cells on the edges of 

 the comb, some of which are afterwards changed by the 

 workers into royal cells. Such is a queen's instinctive 

 hatred to her own kind, that it seems improbable that she 

 should be intrusted with even the initiatory steps for 

 securing a race of successors. 



The young queens are much more largely supplied with 

 food than the other larvae ; so that they seem to lie in a 



