90 TREATISE ON THE 
royal cells are built, in which she lays, and, 
in due time, she leads off a swarm. Now, 
does not this fact seem to imply that there is 
no such arbitrary arrangement of the several 
kinds of eggs as Huber imagines, and if it, 
would be stretching the inference too far to 
say, that the queen has the power of laying 
those of males or of workers, as circum- 
stances may require; does it not imply that 
the statement of Huber may admit of very 
important and frequent exceptions ? 
About the twentieth day from the com- 
mencement of the laying of male eggs, the 
Bees begin to lay the foundation of royal 
cells, and the queen having resumed laying 
female eggs, deposites them, at intervals of 
one or two days, in these cells, from which 
are hatched, in due time, other queens. This 
regular process is, however, sometimes in- 
terrupted :—if the queen be not a fertile one, 
and the colony is, in consequence, weak in 
population, if the hive or domicil itself be 
large in proportion to the number of its in- 
habitants, or if the temperature of the season 
