THE QUEEN OR MOTHER BEE. 7 
pendicularly to the edge of a comb, the small 
end or mouth being downwards, a position most 
favourable to economy of space in the hive. In 
number the royal cells vary from four or five 
to a dozen, and sometimes more. They are not 
commenced till after the usual ereat spring laying of 
eggs for the production of working bees, preparatory 
to swarming; as well as of those to produce drone 
bees. The existence of the latter, in some stage of 
development, is an invariable preliminary to the con- 
struction of royal cells, the reason for which will 
uereafter appear. The affectionate attachment evinced 
by the nurse-bees towards the royal larve is marvel- 
lous, and the quantity of food given is profuse. 
They arrive severally at maturity on or about the 
sixteenth day from the laying of each egg; these 
having usually an interval between them of but a 
few days. Of the young females, or princesses as 
they are often called, and the mode of disposing 
of supernumerary ones, we shall speak more at 
large when we come to treat of swarming. 
The duration of life in a queen bee, under ordinary 
circumstances, is, by a wise provision for the per- 
petuation of the species, much more prolonged than 
is the case with the common bees, and has been 
satisfactorily ascertained to extend sometimes to a 
term of five years; four years is set down by Dzier- 
zon as the average. I am, however, inclined to 
believe that changes of queens take place oftener 
than we are aware of, for in nothing in nature is 
there displayed a more careful attention to the 
due preservation of a family of bees than in the 
