BEES IN THE HIVE. 205 
up in about twenty days. Meanwhile the worker-bees 
have been building on the edge of the cones some 
very curious cells (q, Fig. 57) which look like thimbles 
hanging with the open side upwards, and about every 
three days the queen stops in laying drone-eggs and 
goes to put an egg in one of these cells. Notice that 
she waits three days between each of these peculiar 
layings, because we shall see presently that there is a 
good reason for her doing so. 
The nursing bees take great care of these eggs, and 
instead of putting ordinary food into the cell, they fill 
it with a sweet, pungent jelly, for this larva is to 
become a princess and a future queen-bee. Curiously 
enough, it seems to be the peculiar food and the size 
of the cell which makes the larva grow into a mother- 
bee which can lay eggs, for if a hive has the mis- 
fortune to lose its queen, they take one of the ordinary 
worker-larvae and put it into a royal cell and feed it 
with jelly, and it becomes a queen-bee. As soon as the 
princess is shut in like the others, she begins to spin 
her cocoon, but she does not quite close it as the other 
bees do, but leaves a hole at the top. 
At the end of sixteen days after the first royal 
egg was laid, the eldest princess begins to try to eat 
her way out of her cell, and about this time the 
old queen becomes very uneasy, and wanders about 
distractedly. The reason of this is, that there can 
never be two queen-bees in one hive, and the queen 
knows that her daughter will soon be coming out of 
her cradle and will try to turn her off her throne. 
So, not wishing to have to fight for her kingdom, she 
makes up her mind to seek a new home and take a 
