CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL CELL. 135 



three kinds of insects ; but in what manner two kinds of eggs 

 can produce three different kinds of insects, is a problem not 

 easy of solution. In further illustration of this knotty point, 

 let us suppose that the queen lays only royal and common 

 eggs — from what eggs then are the drones produced ? If we 

 revert the position, and suppose that only drone eggs and 

 common eggs be laid,Tiow then are we to account for the 

 generation of the queens ? It is in the latter case that Mr. 

 Dunbar will interfere, and say there is not any occasion for a 

 royal egg, as the common bees select an egg of their own 

 species, and convert it into a royal one. This is, indeed, not 

 saying much more than Huber said before him, with this 

 difference only, that Mr. Dunbar makes the creation of the 

 queen a fixed and universal habit of the bee, whereas Huber 

 allows of it only on the demise of a queen, and no royal egg 

 existing in the hive. The power of the metamorphosis is thus 

 admitted by both ; but in this particular, Huber and Dunbar 

 have far outstripped both their predecessors and their con- 

 temporaries : for Schirach, Bonner, Ducouedic, and other 

 advocates for the alleged power of the common bee to gene- 

 rate a queen, all admit that the queen bee does actually lay 

 three kinds of eggs ; but that it is only in default of a royal 

 egg existing in the hive, that the common bees take upon 

 themselves to exercise their miraculous power of altering the 

 nature of a common egg into that of a queen. Mr. Dunbar, 

 however, asserts it to be a positive feature of their natural 

 economy ; and in support of his theory, he says, that the egg 

 which the queen bee lays in a royal cell, would, if deposited 

 in a common cell, produce a working bee. This is, however, 

 at variance with all experience : for Mr. Dunbar must be 

 aware, that the construction of the royal cell does not precede 

 the laying of the royal egg, and that the bees do not indis- 

 criminately choose any particular egg, which at their pleasure 

 they convert into a royal one. 



It is a circumstance verified by almost all apiarians, that 

 g 4 



