44 NATURAL HISTOKT OF THE HONEY BEE. 



mistake on the part of some of his bees. At the base of 

 this cell, was an unusual quantity of the peculiar jelly or 

 paste, which is fed to the young that are to be developed as 

 Queens. One might almost imagine that the poor bees in 

 their desperation, had dosed the unfortunate drone to death ; 

 as though they expected by such liberal feeding, to produce 

 some hopeful change in his sexual organization. 



In the Summer of 1854, I found another drone laying 

 Queen, in my Apiary ; her wings were shrivelled, so that 

 she could not fly. I gave her successively to several 

 queenless colonies, in all of which she continued to deposit 

 nothing but drone eggs. 



On the 14th of July, 1855, a Queen which hatched in one 

 of my observing hives, after remaining in the hive for nine 

 days without exhibiting any external appearance of impreg- 

 nation, began to lay a few eggs on the edges of the combs 

 instead of in the cells. She persisted in this for some days, 

 until I transferred her to a colony which had been queen- 

 less for some weeks, hoping that she might make an excur- 

 sion from their hive to meet the drones. The observing hive 

 in which she was born was exposed to the full light of day : 

 the entrance was small and not very easy to find, and I had 

 noticed on several occasions that in the afternoon, when the 

 drones usually leave the hive in greatest numbers, the Queen 

 seemed unable to get out. She manifested unusual excite- 

 ment, and the whole colony were almost as much agitated 

 as though they were swarming. After she had been in the 

 second hive a short time, I examined it carefully, and found 

 that she had laid a considerable number of drone eggs. 

 They were deposited near the bottom and edge of the comb ; 

 not in drone cells, but yet in cells a little larger than the 

 worker size, and which the bees had begun to lengthen, 

 the better to adapt them to the growth of their occupants. 



