POSITION OF THE NYMPHS IN THE CELL. 205 



baffled, and still continues to baffle the research of man in 

 a greater degree, than the honey bee. It is not, however, 

 simply the impossibility of Huber to have made his alleged 

 discoveries, that we mean to maintain ; but we contend 

 against the actual truth of them, and in no instance with 

 greater force, than in the massacre of the young queens by 

 the first queen that happens to emerge from her cell. This 

 very circumstance, however, carries with it its own refuta- 

 tion ; for were it a general and established practice, as a 

 part of the nature of the young queen bee, to kill the others 

 in the cells, the question then naturally arises, in what 

 manner are the different swarms to be provided with their 

 queens, without which no swarm will leave the hive ? Huber 

 may indeed step in and say that he has provided against this 

 casualty by the establishment of his guards ; but where is 

 the individual, who can be so credulous as to believe that 

 a number of bees are regularly posted as guards to prevent 

 an act taking place, which is in itself a direct infraction of 

 the universal order established by nature, at the same time 

 that it is at variance with the fixed and invariable action of 

 the bee ? 



There is, however, a most remarkable circumstance men- 

 tioned by Huber in regard to the first transformed queen 

 killing the nymphs of the young queens, which cannot but 

 prove highly entertaining to those, who are acquainted with 

 the manner in which the nymph of the young queen lies in 

 the cell. It is well known that the nymphs of the common 

 bees lie invariably with their head towards the orifice of the 

 cell ; for were they placed in a contrary direction, that is, 

 with the tail to the orifice, the order of their nature would 

 be reversed, and they would not be able to extricate them- 

 selves from the cell. It is by their forceps or mouth that 

 they gnaw away the film, with which the bees have covered 

 the orifice of the cell, and thereby obtain their liberty. It 

 is similarly constituted with the young queen ; with this 

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