122 OPINION OF WILDMAN. 



having fastened it into another hive, then to introduce a 

 number of common bees, who are to proceed in the regular 

 manner to nourish the brood and create for themselves a 

 queen. Wildman very justly says*, that the combs so 

 introduced into the hive must contain a royal cell, in order 

 to secure the birth of the new monarch, and this celebrated 

 apiarian was here actually standing on the very threshold of 

 truth ; for it is a fact, not to be disputed, although it strongly 

 militates against the system of Huber, Dunbar, and the 

 other advocates for the generating power of the common bee, 

 that the existence of a royal egg in a cell is a positive sine 

 qua non in the generation of a queen, and we believe that no 

 one, with the exception of Huber, will be hardy enough to 

 assert that a queen bee was ever bred in the cell of a com- 

 mon bee. But in this instance, the main question to be 

 decided is, whether the formation of a royal cell precedes the 

 laying of the royal egg, or whether the royal egg having 

 been deposited in any particular cell, and being recognised 

 as such by the working bees, they immediately proceed to 

 enclose it in that particular form of cell, by which a royal 

 one is distinguished. According to the affirmations of Huber, 

 either case is feasible ; but according to every experiment, 

 which we have tried and supported by the experiments of 

 others, we may venture to declare the latter to be the real 

 course that is pursued, for with the view of ascertaining the 



* Without attempting to depreciate the character of Wildman as an apiarian, 

 it may nevertheless he worthy of remark, that in the compilation of his work 

 on bees, he can lay a very slight claim to originality, the greater portion of it 

 being an abridgment of the systems of Maraldi and Reaumur, as inserted in 

 the Memoires de l'Academie des Sciences de Paris. His apparently unlimited 

 control over the bees procured for him the character of a conjurer, but the 

 influence of fear and a correct knowledge of the natural habit of the queen 

 bee, were the only witchcraft which he used. He might have astonished 

 George the Third of England, which, by the by, was no very difficult matter, 

 by showing him a cluster of bees hanging from his arm ; but after all, it was 

 nothing but a species of quackery, for let any one place a queen bee upon his 

 arm and the bees will immediately cluster upon it. It was however on this 

 kind of Charlatanerie that the fame of AVildman was founded. 



