Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/93

Rh she was their Queen. "What was my astonishment," he proceeds, "when, wishing to introduce her among the combs, I saw that the bees remaining had already planned and almost finished three royal cells! Struck with the activity and sagacity of these creatures, to save themselves from impending distraction, I was filled with admiration, and adored the infinite goodness of God in the care taken to perpetuate his works. Having carried away two of the cells to ascertain whether the bees would continue their operations, I beheld, next morning, with the utmost surprise, that they had removed all the food from around the third worm left behind, on purpose to prevent its conversion to a Queen." The fact of this power possessed by the bees is so extraordinary, that its reality was at first called in question by several eminent naturalists, among others, by the justly celebrated Bonnet. This naturalist was at last, however, convinced of its reality by experiments instituted by himself, and, satisfied that all the working-bees are females of imperfect organisation, expressed his opinion that the evolution of the germ is effected by the action of the prolific matter as a stimulant, as a substantial nutriment suitable for that purpose; and he supposes that a certain quality of food, administered more copiously than in ordinary cases, may unfold those organs in the larvæ of bees that never would have appeared without it. He conceived, also, that a habitation, like a Queen-cell, considerably more spacious, and differently placed, is absolutely necessary to the complete developement, of organs, which