THE BEE NATION. 221 



days in this cyl'ndrical tube. But as it requires for its 

 development a royal dwelling like a pyramid-shaped cell, 

 the point of which must be directed downwards, the bees at 

 the end of the third day pull away the cells lying beneath, 

 sacrifice the larvae contained therein, and use the wax thus 

 obtained to build a second pyramid-like tube beneath the 

 first.* The cell is lengthened as the larva grows ; and it is 

 continually and amply fed with the royal food, a specially 

 prepared and very nourishing mixture of honey and pollen, set 

 apart for the queens and their larvae, and is continually 

 watched and guarded in the most careful manner by bees 

 which relieve each other. The stimulating influence of this 

 peculiar kind of food so develops the sexual organs which 

 otherwise would have remained rudimentary of the insects 

 thus treated, that they finally become fertile queens or 

 mothers, capable of maintaining and propagating the race. 

 Sometimes also, so-called false or factitious queens are 

 thrown off, which by eating the royal food have stimulated 

 their sexual organs to further development, and which, 

 without impregnation, lay a number of drones' eggs. 

 They are therefore named drone-mothers, and the resulting 

 hive drone-bearing. 



While the bees thus spare no trouble and pains to remedy 

 the fatal loss of their queen in the above fashion, they are yet 

 not so short-sighted nor so driven by instinct as not at once to 

 relinquish this slow and toilsome work if their loss be made 

 good to them by an accident. Franz Huber, in getting rid 

 of the young in a hive, sent in too much smoke, and many 

 of the older bees, and among them the queen, escaped. Huber 

 considered the hive as lost, whtn he found the queen the 

 next day some distance off, in che midst of a knot of bees, 

 and carried it back to the queenless hive. But how great 

 was his surprise when he found that, in this short time, the 

 queenless bees had begun and nearly finished three royal 



* It may here be asked why tho generally sensible bees do not 

 implify the matter by building a regular royal cell, into which they 

 could cairv the eggs or larva) to be brought up. But leaving aside the 

 fact that the carrying or tirapging of the latter can be of no use, ihe 

 building of real royal cells is more toilsome, slower, and especially 

 costlier than the pioceeding above described, which cnly requires the 

 easily repaired 1< ss of a few workers' cells and larvae. So that here 

 again the bees choose the shortest and simplest plan. 



