PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 397 



The fact in question, though the public attention was first called to it 

 by the latter gentleman, had indeed been practically known long before 

 he wrote. M. Vogel, in a letter to Wilheln)!, asserts that numerous 

 experiments confirming this extraordinary fact had been made by more 

 than a hundred different persons, in the course of more than a hundred 

 years ; and that he himself had known old cultivators of bees who ha4 

 unanimously declared to him, that, when proper precautions were taken, 

 in a practice of more than fifty years, the experiment had never failed.^ 

 Signor Monticelli, the Neapolitan professor before mentioned, informs us 

 that the Greeks and Turks of the Ionian Islands know how to make arti- 

 ficial swarms ; and that the art of producing queens at will has been 

 practiced by the inhabitants of a little Sicilian island called Favignana, 

 from very remote antiquity ; and he even brings arguments to prove that 

 it was no secret to the Greeks and Romans^, though, had the practice 

 been common, it would surely have been noticed by Aristotle and Pliny. 



Bonner, a British apiarist, asserts that he has had successful recourse to 

 the Lusatian experiment-^ ; and Mr. Payne of Shipdam in Norfolk (who 

 for many years has been engaged in the culture of bees, and has paid 

 particular attention to their proceedings) relates that he well remembers 

 that the bees of one of his hives, which he discovered had lost their 

 queen, were engaged in erecting some royal cells upon the ruins of some 

 of the common ones. He also informs me that he has found Ruber's 

 statements, as for as he has had an opportunity of verifying them, perfectly 

 accurate.^ 



As I think you will allow that the evidence just detailed to you is 

 abundantly sufficient to establish the fact in question, we will now see 

 whether any satisfactory account can be given for such changes being 

 produced by such causes. " It does not appear to me improbable," says 

 Bonnet, " that a certain kind of nutriment, and in more than usual abun- 

 dance, may cause a developn)ent in the grubs of bees of organs which 

 would never be developed without it. I can readily conceive, also, that, 

 a habitation considerably more spacious, and differently placed, is abso- 

 lutely necessary to the complete development of organs which the new 

 nutriment may cause to grow in all directions."^ And again, with respect 

 to the wings of the queen bee, which do not exceed those of the workers 

 in length, he thinks that this may arise from their being of a substance 

 too stiff to admit of their extension. Those parts and points that were 

 in a state to yield most easily to the action which this kind of nutriment 

 produced would be most prominent ; and the vertical position of the grub 



> Schirach, 121. 2 Huber, ii. 453. 3 Bonner On Bees, 56. 



* The same gentleman subsequently sent me the following memoranda: — 



July 10. 1820. A late second swarm was hived into a box constructed so that each comI> 

 could be taken out and examined separately. On the 7tli of August the queen was removed, 

 and each comb taken out and closely examined ; there was not the least appearance of anv 

 royal cells, but much brood and eggs in the common ones. On the 14th, three royal cell's 

 were observed nearly finished, with a large grub each. On the IGth, the three cells were 

 sealed. On the 18th and 21st, they remained in the same state. On th« 22d, two queens 

 were found hatched ; one was removed, and the other left with the stock, the remaining 

 royal cell being still closed. On the morning of the 23d, a dead queen was thrown out of 

 the hive ; upon which examination being made, the royal cell left closed on the 22d was 

 found open, and a living queen in the stock, which was allowed to remain. 



* Huber, ii. 445. 



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