Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/92

88 and the workers, piercing a hole in the cover of the cell, insert their probosces, and supply her with food during her captivity. On the conversion of the larva of a Worker into a Queen.—Bees, when deprived of their Queen, are endowed by nature with the power of remedying this calamity, by converting a worker larva into a royal one; and, by means of a cell of a larger size, and of a peculiar kind of nourishment, of producing a female that shall be, to all intents and purposes, a Queen or mother-bee, capable of perpetuating her kind. The discovery of this singular fact is generally attributed to Schirach, and, probably, with justice; for, although the practice of making artificial swarms, which can only be effected by causing the production of artificial Queens, is said to have prevailed amongst the modern Greeks and Italians from a very early period, it does not follow, nor does it appear from any authentic documents, that they were aware of the reason why. The manner in which Schirach made the discovery is interesting:—Having used a great quantity of smoke in some of his operations, the bees were so annoyed by it that numbers of them left the hive, and, amongst them, the Queen. Knowing the consequences of her loss, he sought for her diligently, but in vain. Next morning he observed a cluster of bees about the size of an apple on the prop of the hive whose Queen had fled; here he discovered a Queen, and, having carried her to the entrance of the hive which had lost its own, she was immediately surrounded by the bees, and treated in such a manner as plainly announced that