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propounded by Principal Leitch, in an article puhlislied in the August number of 

 • Good Words,' entitled " Bees and the Art of Queen Making." I beg to lay before 

 the Society the opinion of a correspondent, Mr. Woodbury, of Mount Eadford, Exeler. 

 This gentleman, one of the most practical bee-keepers in this country, has published 

 some observations on the new theory, and has also added to them in a communication 

 addressed to myself, in answer to some inquiries of my own. I have extracted the fol- 

 lowing from Mr. Woodbury's communication to the 'Journal of Horticulture and 

 Cottage Gardener:' — ' After noticing the power which bees possess of increasing the 

 temperature of any part of their hive by an accelerated respiration, Dr. Leitch says : 

 ' Viewing this power in connexion with the isolation of the queen's cell, we have a 

 clew to the mystery of development. We soon see why the bees should be at so much 

 pains to drag the royal larva out from the midst of its companions and place it in an 

 insulated position, where a special temperature may be applied. Were the royal 

 larva allowed to remain in its original position, a higher temperature could be 

 applied only to the end of the cell, and the end of the cell is so small that it would 

 be difficult to apply a differential temperature to it. To meet this difficulty, the 

 queen is made to slide out of her old position into a new one, where she can be com- 

 pletely surrounded by the hatching bees, and have.an elevated temperature applied to 

 all parts ; and when you look into a hive, you see the bees constantly clustering all 

 over the insulated cell. 



*' ' The surmise that temperature furnished the clew to the secret was confirmed by 

 actually testing it; small thermometers were inserted into the hive, one in contact with 

 the queen's cell, the others in different parts of the comb : we found that the difference 

 of temperature bore out our hypothesis, that a higher temperature was steadily applied 

 to the queen's cell. The inference is then legitimate, that temperature, if not the 

 cause, is one of the causes which account for this, the greatest marvel of insect 

 life.' " 



" As (he Rev. Principal does not particularize any experiments beyond thermo- 

 metrical observations, we may be excused for doubting whether these are quite so 

 conclusive as he imagines, as well as for suggesting that it is just possible that he 

 may have mistaken effect for cause, since it by no means follows that because the pro- 

 cess of queen-raising is generally attended with an increase of temperature, the in- 

 sulation of a queen's cell, or even a special temperature, is absolutely essential to its 

 success. In frame-hives, especially, we have often found queens hatched out of cells 

 which were so placed 'as to render it impossible for the bees to cluster all over them, 

 whilst the general position of queens'-cells on the edges of combs, and, therefore, in 

 the coldest parts of the hives, is such as of itself to raise a doubt as to the correctness 

 of the new theory. 



" Our own impression is, that the immortal Huber was most probably correct in 

 assigning as the cause of this wonderful transformation the quality as well as the 

 quantity of food with which the royal larva is supplied. To this hypothesis Dr. 

 Leitch objects that it has by no means been conclusively proved, either by chemical 

 analysis or by any other means, that the so-called royal jelly differs in any respect 

 from the ordinary food supplied to the worker-larva. 



" We now come to a circumstance which appears to us so conclusive, as to the 

 fact of the food with which it is supplied being the true cause of this marvellous 

 transformation of a worker-larva into a queen-bee, that we fancy, if it had come under 



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