FOOD NOT ADMINISTERED TO THE LARVAE. 345 



although they possess the power of regurgitation, yet we 

 never experienced a single instance in which honey was 

 regurgitated into a cell, in which there was an existing 

 worm. Rather than consume a single particle of bee bread, 

 they will die with hunger ; and in proof of that assertion, 

 we will challenge any person whose hive has perished 

 during the winter for want of food, to deny that in a hive 

 so circumstanced a superabundance of bee bread was to be 

 found ; and in fact, it generally happens that the bee bread 

 predominates in those hives, which are found to be deserted 

 by the bees, or which have perished for want of food. 



Amidst this contrariety of opinion, it is perhaps of all 

 circumstances the most singular, that amongst the numerous 

 advocates for the administration of food to the larvae, not 

 one of them has been able to determine what that food is. 

 One affirms it to be honey, another honey and water; a 

 third, a mixture of honey, farina, and water; a fourth, a 

 particular and unknown substance collected by the bees ; 

 and a fifth, a kind of liquid designated as royal jelly, which 

 is manufactured by a particular species of bees, and the ex- 

 traordinary potency of which has been already fully detailed. 

 Further, it is not only the substance itself, but the very colour 

 of it, respecting which, scarcely two of them agree. Huber 

 declares it to be white, Lombard affirms it to be yellow, 

 Ducarne asserts it to be of a golden colour ; and all of them 

 again differ as to the taste of it ; by one of them it is said 

 to be sweet, by another that it is acrid, by a third that it 

 is highly pungent, and by a fourth that it is wholly insipid ; 

 from all of which we draw the conclusion, that had any food 

 been ever seen in a cell, such a contrariety of opinion could 

 not possibly have existed ; and that the total want of unani- 

 mity as to its real nature and character is almost an incon- 

 trovertible proof that no food whatever is administered to 

 the larvae. 



