QUEENS 
699 
corrugate the sides something like a thim¬ 
ble. This corrugation, or roughness, when 
closely examined, will be seen to be honey¬ 
comb, or, rather, an imperfect representa¬ 
tion of honeycomb on a very small scale. 
It is very handy to be able to tell when 
any young queen will be likely to emerge; 
and the bees are very accommodating in this 
respect also; for, about the day before the 
queen emerges, or maybe two days, they 
proceed to tear down this peak of wax on 
the tip of the cell, leaving only a thin cov¬ 
ering. No one knows why unless they are 
anxious to get a peep at their new mother. 
It has been said they do it that she may be 
better able to pierce the capping; but 
sometimes they omit the proceeding entire¬ 
ly, and apparently she has no difficulty in 
cutting the cap off. If the cell is built on 
new comb, or on a sheet of foundation, and 
be held up before a strong light at about 
the fifteenth day, or a little later, the queen 
can be seen moving about in the cell. Aft¬ 
erward, by listening carefully, she can be 
heard gnawing her way out. Pretty soon 
the points of her sharp and powerful man¬ 
dibles will be seen pi’otruding, as she bites 
out a narrow line. Since she turns her 
body in a circle while doing this, she cuts 
out a circle so true that it often looks as if 
marked by a pair of compasses. The sub¬ 
stance of which the cell is made is tough 
and leathery, and, therefore, before she 
gets clear around her circle, the piece 
springs out in response to her pushing, and 
opens just about as the lid of a coffeepot 
would if a kitten should happen to be in¬ 
side crowding against the lid. Queens may 
often be seen pushing the door open and 
looking out, with as much apparent curi¬ 
osity as a child exhibits when it first creeps 
to the door of a summer morning; often, 
after taking this look, they will back down 
into their cradles, and stay some time. 
This is especially the case when other 
queens are emerging, and there is a strife 
as to who shall be sovereign. 
• royal jelly. 
It will now be in order to consider the 
strange substance, royal jelly, on which 
the baby queens are fed while in the cell. 
The milky food before described, which 
is given to the young larvae, and which is 
supposed to be a mixture of pollen and 
honey partially digested, is very similar, if 
not identical, in composition with the royal 
jelly. Bees are not the only examples in 
the animal kingdom where the food is 
taken into the stomach by the parent, and, 
after partial digestion, regurgitated for the 
use of the offspring. Pigeons feed their 
young precisely in this way until they are 
able to digest their food for themselves. 
It has been stated that bees use a coarser 
food for the worker larvae, after they are a 
few days old, and also for the drone larvse 
during the whole of their larval state. By 
“coarser food” is meant a food not so 
perfectly digested; in fact, drones are said 
to be fed on a mixture of pollen and honey, 
» 
.. LJ 
Natural built oueen-colls life size—Photographed 
by W. Z. Hutchinson. 
in a state nearly natural. It has also been 
said, that queens receive the very finest, 
most perfectly digested, and concentrated 
food that bees can prepare. This we can 
readily believe, for the royal jelly has a 
very rich taste—something between cream, 
quince jelly, and honey—with a slightly 
tart and a rank, strong, milky flavor that is 
quite sickening if much be taken. 
WHAT DOES THE QUEEN DO WHILE SEALED 
UP? 
The author has opened cells at every 
stage after they were sealed until the queens 
