20 
THE HONEY-MAKERS. 
the future grub, since the different sexes have 
each their peculiarly constructed chambers. The 
eggs producing workers are deposited in six-sided 
horizontal cells ; the cells of the drones are some- 
what irregular in form, while those of the queen- 
bees are spacious, circular, and vertical. 
The queen-mother, with unvarying accuracy, 
deposits each egg in its proper cell, generally lay- 
ing about two hundred in a day, commencing 
with those which produce workers. This occu- 
pies her for ten or twelve days, during which 
time the larger cells are in process of construc- 
tion. In them, for the next sixteen or twenty 
days, she lays male eggs, but fewer in number 
than the former. Whether royal eggs shall be 
laid or not seems to be left to the discretion or 
judgment of the inhabitants of the hive, and is 
another instance of the wonderful instinct with 
which God has endowed them. If there is to be 
no vacancy on the throne, the bees make no prep- 
aration for another monarch. They expend no 
useless labor ; they do no work without some 
definite, practical end in view. 
If the population of the hive is so great that it 
