~ARTICULATA. 77 
food given to queen larvae. Several new queens finally appear, and a 
conflict ensues, till one only survives. If a strange queen is introduced 
soon after the original one has been removed, it is surrounded and starved, 
but never stung; though if the interval of eighteen hours has elapsed, the 
stranger will be at first surrounded, but afterwards allowed to go. If, 
however, the hive has been twenty-four hours without a queen, the new 
comer takes her place as queen. When two queens come together they 
fight until one of them is killed. 
‘Most of the eggs laid by the female bee are those of workers, until she is 
about eleven months old, when two or three thousand male eggs are laid at 
the rate of forty or fifty a day, and this generally happens in March and 
April, a smaller amount of male eggs being laid in autumn. Whilst laying 
the male eggs, the queen also lays the few which are to produce females, 
and these are deposited in “royal cells” constructed for the purpose, of a 
large size, and not placed in regular series like the others. These eggs 
are not laid faster than one a day, and seldom to the number of twenty ; and 
they are placed at once in the royal cells by the queen, who inserts her 
abdomen for the purpose. 
When the young females approach their adult state, the queen becomes 
uneasy, she communicates her uneasiness to the workers, and in their con- 
fusion they all go forth with the old queen, thus forming a new swarm; but 
as this occurs in fine weather when many of the bees are abroad, these, 
upon their return, take care of the hive, and others soon leave the pupa 
state. 
The female eggs (not being laid simultaneously) come to maturity at 
different times ; and when the young female leaves its pupa state, it begins 
to gnaw an aperture for its egress, but the workers prevent this for two days 
by stopping the place with wax. When she finally emerges, she endeavors 
to go to the other royal cells to destroy them and their inmates, but she is 
prevented by the workers, and another scene of confusion ensues which, in 
a full hive, ends in a second swarming. ‘This reduces the workers so much, 
that when another female emerges she cannot be prevented from destroying 
the royal cells and their contents, so that she becomes queen of the hive, 
although she may have to fight with others which emerge about the same 
time. Small hives do not send off swarms, and in this case royal cells are 
not made nor female eggs laid. After swarming the males are killed, and 
being without a sting, they readily succumb under the stings of the 
workers. 
Various species of the bee are kept for the honey. That of Italy is 
different from the Apis mellifica of Northern Europe and the United States. 
Orver 8. LeriporTrra. In this order the metamorphosis is complete, the 
antenne multi-articulate, the labrum and mandibles rudimentary, the 
maxillz forming a spiral sucker, the labial palpi are large, the wings broad 
with branching nervures, and having both surfaces covered with minute 
scales. 
These insects are known under the general name of butterflres ; some 
small species which destroy cloth in their larva state (or the larve them- 
381 
