28 THTSIOLOGY AND BKEEDING. 



will probably be over the larvaB about four days old, and 

 in ten days a queen will have matured. To insure the 

 possession of a queen, they may afterwards begin sevei-al 

 others, perhaps use some of the eggs, or some that were 

 eggs when the comb was given them ; but if the first queen 

 hatches, she makes it her business to destroy all immature 

 ones. 



SIMILAEITT OF QUEEN AND WOBKBR EGGS. 



Yh&facf that queens raised in this way seem to possess 

 all the requisites of those raised in swarming hives, indi- 

 cates that the eggs laid in worker and queen cells are all 

 alike. It also gives rise to the idea with many modern 

 writers, that all eggs for both queens and workers are laid 

 in worker cells, and transferred to queen cells when wanted 

 there. The antipathy of one queen towards another, al- 

 though an immature one, and her own offspring, is thought 

 sufficient to prevent her depositing eggs in these cells. 

 Now, without sufficient evidence to be able to deny this 

 positively, I must content myself with merely expressing 

 a disbelief. I would like to say that I do npt believe that 

 the bees ever remove an egg or larva from a worker to a 

 queen cell. For several years I have raised qjieens artifi- 

 cially by the hundred, in small queen boxes. In nearly 

 all the boxes., there would be some queen cells in that stage 

 of progress when it would be supposed that such transfer 

 would be desirable. I have watched diligently and never 

 yet discovered it. "Whenever a queen has been raised, 

 the egg or larva was in the cell when given to the bees, 

 and the workers always changed or enlarged a common 

 cell to a queen cell. The shape of the cell depends on the 

 position of the comb from which it is made ; if from a 

 comb with cells of ordinary length, they are enlarged, 

 lengthened, and turned downward. If the cells are not 

 veiy deep, or are near the lower edge of the comb 

 where there is abundant room to turn them down, 



