40 THE HIVE AND HONET-BEK. 



had been present, by which the drone-eggs had been de- 

 posited. 



Another mteresting fact proves that all tlie eggs laid 

 by this queen were drone-eggs. Two of the royal cells 

 were in a short time discontinued ; while a third was 

 sealed over in the usual way, to undergo its changes to a 

 perfect queen. As the bees had only a drone-laying 

 queen, whence came the female egg from which they 

 were rearing a queen ? 



At first I imagined that they might have stolen it from 

 another hive ; but on opening this cell it contained only a 

 dead drone 1 Huber had described a similar mistake made 

 by some of his bees. At the base of this cell was an unu- 

 sual quantity of the peculiar jelly fed to develop young 

 queens. One might almost imagine that the bees had 

 dosed the unfortunate drone to death ; as though they 

 hoped by such liberal feeding to produce a change in his 

 sexual organization. 



In the Summer of 18.54, I found another drone-laying 

 queen in my Apiary, with wings so shrivelled that she 

 could not fly. I gave her successively to several queen- 

 less colonies, in all of which she deposited only drone-eggs. 



On the 14th of July, 1855, a queen in one of my observ- 

 ing-hives began to lay, when nine days old, a few eggs on 

 the edges of the combs, instead of in the cells. She per- 

 sisted ia this for some days, until I transferred her to a 

 colony which had been queenless for some weeks, hoping 

 that she might, if unimpregnated, make an excursion from 

 their hive to meet the drones. The observing-hive in 

 which she was hatched was exposed to the full light of 

 day ; the entrance small, and difficult to find ; .ind I had 

 noticed on several occasions, that when the drones left 

 the hive in the greatest numbers, the queen seemed un- 

 able to find her way out. At such times she manifested 



