THE QUEEN. 47 



106. As it is not intended that the young queens should 

 all be of the same age, the royal-cells are not all begun at 

 the same time. It is not fully settled how the eggs are de- 

 posited in these cells. In some few instances, we have 

 known the bees to transfer the eggs from common to queen- 

 cells; and this may be their general method of procedure. 

 Mr. Wagner put some queenless bees, brought from a dis- 

 tance, into empty combs that had lain for two years in his 

 garret. When supplied with brood, they raised their queen 

 in this old comb! Mr. Richard Colvin, of Baltimore, and 

 other apiarian friends, have communicated to us instances 

 almost as striking. Yet, Huber has proved that bees do 

 not ordinarily transport the eggs of the queen from one cell 

 to another. We shall hazard the conjecture, that, in a 

 crowded state of the hive, the queen deposits her eggs in cells 

 on the edges of the comb, some of which are afterwards 

 changed by the workers into royal cells. Such is a queen's 

 instinctive hatred of her own kind, that it seems improbable 

 that she should be intrusted with even the initiatory steps 

 for securing a race of successors. 



(For further particulars concerning the raising of large 

 numbers of queen-cells, see 515-530.) 



107. The egg which is destined to produce a queen-bee 

 does not differ from the egg intended to become a worker; 

 but the young queen-larvae are much more largely supplied 

 with food than the other larvae; so that they seem to lie in 

 a thick bed of jelly, a portion of which may usually be found 

 at the base of their cells, soon after they have hatched, while 

 the food given to the worker-larvae after three days, and for 

 the last days of their development, is coarser and more 

 sparingly given, as will be seen farther on. 



108. The effects produced on the royal larvae by their 

 peculiar treatment are so wonderful, that they were at first 

 rejected as idle whims, by those who had neither been eye- 

 witnesses to them, nor acquainted with the opportunities en- 

 joyed by others for accurate observation. They are not only 

 contrary to all common analogies, but seem marvelously 



