Mr. Hunter's Observations on Bees. 153 
Probably that end of the egg which is first protruded, is that 
which sticks to the bottom of the cell : and probably the tail 
of the maggot is formed at that end: when they move the egg, 
how they make it stick again, I do not know. I have just ob- 
served, that they often move the egg out of a cell, to some 
other, we may suppose ; why they do this, I cannot say ; whe- 
ther it is because we have been exposing this part, is not easily 
determined. In those new formed combs, as also in many 
not half finished, we find the substance called bee-bread, and 
some of it is covered over with wax ; which will be considered 
further. By the time they have worked above half way down 
the hive, with the comb, they are beginning to form the larger 
cells, and by this time the first broods are hatched, which were 
small, or labourers ; and now they begin to breed males, and pro- 
bably a queen, for a new swarm ; because the males are now bred 
to impregnatethe young queen for the present summer, as also 
for the next year. This progress in breeding is the same with 
that of the wasp, hornet, and humble bee.* Although this ac- 
count is commonly allowed, yet writers on this subject have 
supposed another mode of producing a queen, when the hive is 
in possession of maggots, and deprived of their queen. 
What may be called the complete process of the egg, namely, 
from the time of laying to the birth of the bee, (that is, the time 
of hatching,) the life of the maggot, and the life of the chrysa- 
lis, is, I believe, shorter than in most insects. It is not easy to 
* Reaumur on Bees, says, that the drone eggs, when laid in small cells, produce 
drones: and Wilhelmi says, that it is the labourers only that lay drone eggs. 
Mr. Riem says, that queens are never reared in any but royal cells, although males 
sometimes in common cells ; and workers in old queen cells, but never in those re- 
cently made. 
MDCCXCII. 
X 
