ly
demonstrated. On examining the queen cells while they are in progress,
one of the first things which excites our notice, is the very unusual
amount of attention bestowed upon them by the workers. There is scarcely
a second in which a bee is not peeping into them, and just as fast as
one is satisfied, another pops its head in, to examine if not to report,
progress. The importance of their inmates to the bee-community, might
easily be inferred from their being the center of so much attraction.

ROYAL JELLY.

The young queens are supplied with a much larger quantity of food than
is allotted to the other larvae, so that they seem almost to float in a
thick bed of jelly, and there is usually a portion of it left unconsumed
at the base of the cells, after the insects have arrived at maturity. It
is different from the food of either drones or workers, and in
appearance, resembles a light quince jelly, having a slightly acid
taste.

I submitted a portion of the royal jelly for analysis, to Dr. Charles M.
Wetherill, of Philadelphia; a very interesting account of his
examination may be found in the proceedings of the Phila. Academy of
Nat. Sciences for July, 1852. He speaks of the substance as "truly a
bread-containing, albuminous compound." I hope in the course of the
coming summer to obtain from this able analytical chemist, an analysis
of the food of the young drones and workers. A comparison of its
elements with those of the royal jelly, may throw some light on subjects
as yet involved in obscurity.

The effects produced upon the larvae by this peculiar food and method of
treatment, are very remarkable. For one, I have never considered it
strange that such effects should be rejected as idle whims, by nearly
all except those who have either been eye-witnesses to them, or have
been well acquainted with the character and opportunities for accurate
observation, of those on whose testimony they have received them. They
are not only in themselves most marvelously strange, but on the face of
them so entirely opposed to all common analogies, and so very
improbable, that many men when asked to believe them, feel almost as
though an insult were offered to their common sense. The most important
of these effects, I shall now proceed to enumerate.

1st. The peculiar mode in which the worm designed to be reared as a
queen, is treated, causes it to arrive at maturity, about one-third
earlier than if it had been bred a worker. And