IH£ SEK. 



and 80 on, relieving each other from time to time throngh the 

 day, tin the comh is completed. When finished, the combs 

 comprise a congeries of hexagonal cells, each comb being com- 

 posed of two ranges of cells, backed against each other, the 

 partition between each double row being so disposed as to form 

 a pyramidal cavity at the bottom of each. Between these 

 double combs there is a road just wide enough to admit the 

 passage of two busy bees without jostling. 



As soon as the cells are in readiness, intimation of the fact 

 is conveyed to her majesty the queen bee, who at once proceeds 

 to lay her eggs. She has three sorts of eggs to deposit, — worker 

 eggs, drone eggs, and princess eggs, and the cells prepared for 

 the reception of each differ in shape from the other. The 

 " worker " cells are smaller and neater than the drone cells, and 

 those intended for the reception of royal eggs are more com- 

 modious still. Now, if her majesty the egg-laying queen had 

 the handling of each egg before it was put away, it would ac- 

 count for the fact that in no instance is a mistake ever made 

 in assigning the wrong cradle to this 

 insect or that; but as she, attended 

 by her obsequious body-guard, simply 

 inserts the hiuder part of her body 

 into each ceU, and at the rate, accord- 

 ing to Reaumur, of two hundi-ed a day, 

 one does not exactly see how she dis- 

 tinguishes one egg from another with 

 AKBATOEMENT OF CELLS, fcli Unerring accuracy. Huber once 

 tested this durmg her period of egg- 

 laying. He confined a queen bee, so that she could get at 

 nothing but drone cells : at once, she discontinued laying al- 

 together ; and it was only when she had failed in her repeated 

 efforts to escape, and nature forbade her to retain the eggs any 

 longer, that she dropped them, letting them faU where they 

 might. After all, however, this is rather a matter for awe 

 than speculation ; without doubt, the bee of itself knows no- 

 thing of this egg or that, and surely it is not more wonderful 

 that He who has all creation at His finger's tip, should direct 

 the nature of the little bee as well as of the fierce rhinoceros 

 or the nervous ostrich. 



The bee's egg is a small colourless speck, and is deposited 

 at the very bottom of its cell. At the end of four days, there 

 emerges from this speck a little dingy-white worm, possessing, 

 as far as the naked eye can observe, no sign of external mem- 



