114 DIFFERENT KINDS OF CELLS. 



In the investigation of the disputed point relative to the 

 power of the common bees to generate a queen, from any 

 particular egg selected by them, and on which so much 

 depends, in order to arrive at a correct knowledge of the real 

 nature of the bee, the position must be granted to us, that 

 the queen bee lays every egg in the hive ; and the primary 

 question then to be considered is, whether these eggs be all 

 of one kind, or whether the egg from which a queen is to 

 spring be of one kind, the egg from which a drone is to 

 spring of another kind, and the egg from which a common 

 bee of a still different one. It is a fact, well known to pro- 

 fessed apiarians, that every hive contains four kinds of cells. 

 First, the royal cells, in which the queens are reared ; 

 secondly, the cells in which the drones are bred ; thirdly, 

 those in which the common bees are produced ; and fourthly, 

 those which from their elongated form are appropriated 

 solely to the reception of the honey, and in which no egg is 

 ever laid*. On the commencement of the spring, the queen 

 proceeds to lay her eggs, and the principal question then to 

 be considered is, whether she is actually conscious of the 

 kind of eggs which she is about to lay, or whether she lays 

 them indiscriminately in the cells of the drones, and in those 

 of the common bees, and that the eggs are afterwards by a 

 particular process peculiar to the common bee, formed into 

 either a queen, a drone, or a common bee. All the advo- 

 cates of the Huberian system are forced to admit that the 



* It is worthy of remark that the editor of the Naturalist's Library says, 

 "that the cells in which the young bees are reared, are afterwards made the 

 receptacles of honey." On what authority is this error promulgated? The 

 breeding cells are never appropriated to the reception of honey, for the bee 

 is too clean an insect to treasure up its food in a cell which has been the 

 cradle of perhaps a dozen bees, and which consequently must be unclean. 

 We can with certainty affirm, that we never knew any honey deposited in a 

 breeding cell ; although it must be admitted that some difficulty exists in 

 determining the exact boundary of the breeding cells, which in a -reat 

 measure depends upon the fecundity of the queen ; but we deny the position 

 of Mr. Duncan as a general principle, as being totally at variance with the 

 internal economy of a hive. 



