74 AUSTRALASIAN 
The transformations of the queen larva are completed in 
seven days from the closing of the cell, so that on the sixteenth 
day from the laying of the egg (six days shorter than the 
period for the worker, and nine days shorter than that for the 
drone) the fully developed queen emerges from the cell. 
The only other matter to be noticed in this place is the 
exceptional development of a queen bee from an egg or young 
larva originally laid in a worker cell. This takes place in 
abnormal cases only where the hive has suddenly become queen- 
less. As soon as their loss is discovered by the workers, they 
proceed to build queen cells over worker eggs, or over larvee not 
more than three days old. They select a cell for the purpose, with 
the egg or very young larva in it; they break down the parti- 
tions of the adjoining cells, and so make room for the base of 
a queen cell, which they proceed to build in the usual manner, 
and to feed the larva with the usual royal jelly, and in due 
course of time a developed queen is produced. The subjoined 
figure shows the appearance of such queen cells built over ordi- 
nary cells. The ordinary worker cells, with eggs in them, are 
shown at A; B is a queen cell partly built ; and c one completed 
and closed. D shows a case, which sometimes occurs, of a queen 
cell built over drone brood. Such cells—which may be known 
by the absence of indentations on their outer surfaces—are of 
course useless, as the nature of the drone egg is not altered by 
the form of the cell or the quality of the food given to the larva. 
This phenomenon of queens being reared from worker larve 
caused much astonishment when it was first observed by Schirach 
