148 
ANNALS OP THE 
into action. It was thought that a regular queen had always a royal descent from 
the very commencement. The old queen or mother was supposed to lay three dif- 
ferent kinds of eggs in three different kinds of cells. On opening a hive, it will be 
observed that the great mass of cells are of the same size. In these, the eggs are 
laid which produce common working bees. In looking more narrowly, it will be 
seen that there are a few hundred cells of a larger size, but of exactly the same 
shape. In these the drones, or males, are brought up ; and lastly, there will be ob- 
served three or four cells altogether different, of a pear shape, and with the small 
open end looking towards the bottom of the hive. In these the young queens 
are nursed and brought to maturity. Now, it was thought that the normal plan was 
for the queen to lay a royal egg in a royal cell, and that from this, as a rule, the 
future queen sprung. In the exceptional plan, the method was supposed to be quite 
different. When a queen perishes, and another must be provided, the worm of a 
common cell is taken, a royal cell is built at the mouth of the former, and the fortu- 
nate larva is launched into this more capacious room to enjoy royal luxuries and at- 
tention. 
My first enquiry was to determine this point : was it really the case that there 
were two distinct methods by which a queen was produced ? There were two facts 
by which my enquiries were directed. The first was that one method seemed quite 
adequate for the social economy of the hive ; and the second, that the interval 
between the first and second swarms of a hive corresponded to the time required to 
bring forth a queen in the supposed abnormal way. But to see the point of this it 
is necessary to advert to the various stages of bee existence. The egg is hatched 
three days after being layed. The worm that issues from the egg continues five 
days in its grub state. It is then covered up in its cell, and continues in this state 
for other eleven days, when it comes forth as a perfect bee ; the whole time from 
the laying of the egg being nineteen days. This, however, a;."^Jies only to the 
worker bee. In the case of the queen, the whole time is fifteen days, and that of the 
drone twenty-five days. When a queen is required to be developed in the abnormal 
way, the community select a common worker worm, three days old from its emer- 
gence from the egg, and, by proper treatment, a perfect queen is hatched in nine 
days, so that the swarm wants a head only for this short time. It a})peared to me 
a coincidence, which ought not to be overlooked, that the interval between the first 
and second swarm was ordinarily nine days, corresponding with the above period. 
This at once led to the suspicion that when a queen left a hive with the swarm, the 
desertion was equivalent to the death of a sovereign, and that the same method was 
adopted to supply her place. The usual belief was that before the old queen left 
the hive with a swarm, she saw her successor fairly in possession of the throne, or 
at least ready to be crowned. This on examination, was found not to be the case. 
On opening the hive immediately after the queen has left, it will be found that 
