CONTRADICTIONS OF DIFFERENT NATURALISTS. 119 



describe the process, which consists in first enlarging the 

 cell, and then administering a certain kind of aliment, of the 

 nature or constitution of which he is ignorant, but which 

 Huber afterwards discovers to be a kind of royal jelly, of 

 the origin or constitution of which he is also ignorant. 

 Schirach also says, that the worm of the common bee can- 

 not be converted into a queen, unless it be three days old ; 

 Huber, on the contrary, affirms that the worm has only to 

 be a few hours in existence to be capable of being converted 

 into a queen. Dunbar says, a queen can be made at any 

 time that the worm is in its larva state, and Lombard, by 

 way of a climax, affirms, that a queen can be made even when 

 enveloped in its cocoon. Now, without stopping here to 

 reconcile the contradictions of these naturalists, it will be 

 simply sufficient in the present instance to remark, that 

 nature is here made to commit a prodigality, which is wholly 

 inconsistent with those laws, to which she appears to be in- 

 dissolubly bound. It is an inherent part of the nature of 

 the queen bee to lay those eggs from which the future 

 queens are to rise: but this property becomes a direct nullity, 

 and in fact wholly superfluous, if the common bees be also 

 invested with the power of creating to themselves a queen 

 from any common egg that they may please to select, or 

 even which may be selected for them, and merely by the 

 influence of a particular kind of aliment. 



There is however, one essential point, which deserves 

 particular attention at the outset of this argument, as the 

 validity of many of the experiments of Schirach and Huber 

 depends upon its verification. The former naturalist very 

 justly says, that the queen bee does not lay royal eggs in 

 cells purposely made to receive them, but that on the deposi- 

 tion of the eggs, the bees construct that kind of cell around 

 them, which is so well known by apiarians as the queen cell. 

 This fact is perfectly agreeable to experience, for the very 

 depth of a queen's cell precludes the possibility of a queen 



