VOL. LXXXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. l60 



attached at one end to the bottom of the cell, sometimes standing perpendicu- 

 larly, often obliquely ; it has a glutinous, or slimy covering, which makes it 

 stick to any thing it touches. It would appear that there was a period or periods 

 for laying eggs ; for I have observed in a new swarm, that the great business of 

 laying eggs did not last above a fortnight ; though the hive was not half filled 

 with comb, it began to slacken. Probably that end of the egg which is first 

 protruded, is that which sticks to the bottom of the cell : and probably the tail 

 of the maggot is formed at that end : when they move the egg, how they make 

 it stick again, I do not know. I have just observed, that they often move the 

 egg out of a cell, to some other, we may suppose ; why they do this, I cannot 

 say ; v.'hether it is because we have been exposing this part, is not easily deter- 

 mined. In those new formed combs, as also in many not half finished, we find 

 the substance called bee-bread, and some of it is covered over with wax ; which 

 will be considered further. By the time they have worked above half way down 

 the hive, with the comb, they are beginning to form the larger cells, and by 

 this time the first broods are hatched, which were small, or labourers ; and now 

 they begin to breed males, and probably a queen, for a new swarm ; because the 

 males are now bred to impregnate the young queen for the present summer, as 

 also for the next year. This progress in breeding is the same with that of the 

 wasp, hornet, and humble bee.* Though this account is commonly allowed, 

 yet writers on this subject have supposed another mode of producing a queen, 

 when the hive is in possession of maggots, and deprived of their queen. 



What may be called the complete process of the egg, namely, from the time 

 of laying to the birth of the bee, that is, the time of hatching, the life of the 

 maggot, and the life of the chrysalis, is I believe shorter than in most insects. 

 It is not easy to fix the time when the eggs hatch : I have been led to imagine 

 it was in 5 days. When they hatch, we find the young maggot lying coiled up 

 in the bottom of the cell, in some degree surrounded with a transparent fluid. 

 In many of the cells, where the eggs have just hatched, we find the skin 

 standing in its place, either not yet removed, or not pressed down by the mag- 

 got. There is now an additional employment for the labourers, namely, the 

 feeding and nursing the young maggots. We may suppose the queen has 

 nothing to do with this, as there are at all times labourers enough in the hive for 

 such purposes, especially too as she never brings the materials, as every other 

 of the tribe is obliged to do at first ; therefore she seems to be a queen by here- 

 ditary, or rather, by natural right, while the humble bee, wasp, hornet, &c. seem 



* Reaumur on bees, says, that the drone eggs, when laid in small cells, produce drones ; and 

 Wilhelmi says, that it is the labourers only that lay drone eggs. Mr. Riem says, that queens are 

 never reared in any but royal cells, though males sometimes in common cells ; and workers in old 

 queen cells, but never in those recently made. — Orig. 



VOL. XVII. Z 



