110 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
but a drone-breeder, But the bees are seldom 
caught napping in this way. Long before this 
happens the building of the royal cells will have 
commenced in the hive. A queen-cell has been 
likened,. by various writers, to an acorn, and when 
half completed it bears a very close resemblance, 
both in size and shape, to an inverted acorn-cup. 
This is commonly hung mouth downwards at the 
side or base of one of the central brood-combs, 
but it may be placed right in the middle of the 
comb, in which case the cells around it are cut 
away to give it air and space. Whether the old 
queen herself deposits the egg in the royal cell— 
thus unwittingly supplying the means for her own 
future dethronement—or whether the worker-bees 
transfer to it an egg or grub from a common cell, 
is not yet finally ascertained. As, however, the 
mefe sight of a royal cell usually excites the queen 
to fury, the chances are that she is never allowed 
to approach it at any time, and the egg would then 
be placed there by the worker-bees. But, in the 
great majority of cases, it is probable that new 
queens are raised by enlarging an already existing 
worker-cell, in which an egg has been previously 
deposited. As far as is known, this is always the 
case when a young grub is used for the purpose 
instead of an egg. It is possible, also, that the 
queen is physically incapable of laying in a royal 
cell an egg that will produce a female bee; but this 
curious point will be touched upon at a later stage. 
