THE HONEY BEE. 215 



a hubbub commences ; work is abandoned ; the whole hive is 

 in an uproar ; the nation has lost its sovereign, and feels the 

 loss deeply ; every bee traverses the hive at random, with the 

 most evident want of purpose. This state of anarchy some- 

 times continues for days ; then the bees gather in knots, clusters 

 of a dozen or so, as though engaged in consultation; shortly 

 after a resolution seems to have been made ; a few of the 

 workers go to work at the cells in which are the eggs of 

 workers ; three of these cells are quickly broken into one, the 

 edges polished, and the sides smoothed and rounded; a single 

 egg being allowed to remain at the bottom. When this egg 

 hatches, the maggot it produces is fed with a peculiarly nutri- 

 tive food, called royal bee bread, which is never given to any 

 maggots but such as are to produce queens. Work is now 

 resumed over the whole hive, and goes on as briskly as before. 

 On the sixteenth day the worker's egg produces a queen, whose 

 appearance is hailed with every demonstration of delight, and 

 who at once assumes sovereignty over the hive. 



Gentle reader ! in the course of thy earthly pilgrimage thou 

 wilt meet with many things that may seem at the first glance 

 rather unaccountable, and this is perhaps one of those things ; 

 but a calm inquiry will relieve our statement of all impossibility, 

 at least: let us endeavour to explain it. There are, as we 

 have set forth, three kinds of bees in a hive ; but there are 

 only two sexes, male and female. Drones are the males ; 

 queens and workers are the females, the workers being for the 

 most part abortive. That the workers are females is amply 

 proved by their possessing a sting, and various other anatomical 

 similarities, besides the circumstance of their occasionally laying- 

 eggs ; and therefore, in the wonderful instance before us, the 

 change is to be attributed solely to the difference of food and 

 care bestowed on the maggot by the workers. 



Let us pause an instant, and look at this fact in another 

 light; let us recollect that, if each maggot were supplied with 

 a sufficiency of food, and that food sufficiently nutritious, then 

 every female would be a queen. How then would the labour 

 of the hive proceed ? there would be no cells, no honey stored 

 for the winter, and the whole community would consequently 

 perish. It is as remarkable, indeed it is more remarkable, that 

 so large a proportion should thus be stinted in their growth, 

 purposely that they might never be encumbered with the cares 



