78 DISPROPORTION OF MALES TO THE FEMALES. 



the most decided claim to originality ; for, he says, the in- 

 stinct of the workers appears in this instance to be defective, 

 for they proceed to administer the royal jelly to the nymphs 

 in the royal cell, and build up the cell, as if it were really a 

 royal worm, yet notwithstanding all this care, the egg, in 

 despite of the administration of the royal jelly, produces a 

 drone, and the common bees then appear confounded and 

 confused at the mistake which they have committed. In 

 another place, we are told that the administration of this 

 royal jelly is in itself of sufficient potency, to convert a 

 common egg into a royal one, the issue of which shall be a 

 queen. In the present instance, however, the royal jelly 

 must have been of a spurious and adulterated kind, or it was 

 not administered in such profusion or in so skilful a manner 

 as to effect the metamorphosis, and, therefore, the egg re- 

 mained intrinsically a drone egg, and the common bees 

 might have spared themselves the trouble of administering 

 any royal jelly at all. 



There is another circumstance which disentitles the fore- 

 going statement of Huber to the slightest credit. He affirms 

 that the queen bee was confined to the hive, by simply con- 

 tracting the entrance from October to May. Now how could 

 this be effected without confining also the common bees, 

 and more especially the drones ; and would not such con- 

 finement be tantamount to the total ruin of the hive ? The 

 population, according to his own showing, has increased 

 nearly six thousand in number, but all egress from the hive 

 being prohibited, the community must necessarily be starved 

 to death. 



The disproportion of males to the females in a hive has 

 from the earliest period, been a subject which has occupied 

 the attention of all apiarians, and Mr. Huber in his first 

 letter to Bonnet attempts to account for that circum- 

 stance, in the following manner;— "The naturalists," says 

 Mr. Huber, " have always been very much embarrassed to 



