Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/96

92 at the same moment, of the largest size, and well formed in every respect. Nothing could he more conclusive than this experiment. It demonstrated that bees have the power of converting the worms of workers into Queens, since they succeeded in procuring them by operating on worms not chosen by themselves, but selected for them. In addition to this conclusive experiment, we shall take the liberty of detailing two of our own on the same subject, which were made nearly twenty years ago, and which we have repeated almost every year since with the same success. We give these experiments not from any idea that those of Huber require confirmation, or that ours are of importance enough to supply any such supposed deficiency, but on the obvious principle that the more numerous the experiments, and the greater the diversity of experimenters, the more irrefragably is the alleged fact established, if the result be uniformly the same. In June 1822, we instituted an experiment with a view of witnessing a combat between two queens, and the result as to that object will be afterwards noticed. It was only incidentally that we derived from it a confirmation of the fact in question, and we shall now state the particulars. Into a hive well peopled, but not possessing, as far as we could discern, any very young brood, we introduced a stranger-queen, with the expectation that the two rival potentates, each of whom, like the jealous Turk, can bear no rival near her throne, would decide by single combat which of them should retain the honours and privileges of