of different ages. One was closed on the first of June,
and on the second another. The bees also commenced some new ones. All
was perfectly quiet at eleven in the morning; but, at mid-day, the
queen, from the utmost tranquillity, became evidently agitated; and her
agitation insensibly communicated to the workers in every part of their
dwelling. In a few minutes they precipitately crowded to the entrances,
and, along with the queen, left the hive. After they had settled on the
branch of a neighbouring tree, I sought for the queen; thinking that, by
removing her, the bees might return to the hive, which actually ensued.
Their first care seemed to consist in seeking the female; they were
still in great agitation, but gradually calmed; and in three hours
complete tranquillity was restored.

They had resumed their usual occupations on the third: they attended to
the young, worked within the open royal cells, and also watched on those
that were shut. They made a waved work on them, not by applying wax
cordons, but by removing wax from the surface. Towards the top this
waved work is almost imperceptible; it becomes deeper above, and the
workers excavate it still more from thence to the base of the pyramid.
The cell, when once shut, also becomes thinner; and is so much so,
immediately preceding the queen's metamorphosis from a nymph, that all
its motions are perceptible through the thin covering of wax on which
the waved work is founded. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that in
making the cells thinner, from the moment they are closed, the bees know
to regulate their labour so that it terminates only when the nymph is
ready to undergo its last metamorphosis.

On the seventh day the coccoon is almost completely _unwaxed_, if I may
use the expression, at the part next to the head and thorax of the
queen. This operation facilitates her exit; for she has nothing to do
but cut the silk that forms the coccoon. Most probably the object is, to
promote evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the nymph. I have
made some direct experiments to ascertain the fact, but they are yet
unfinished. A third royal cell was closed by the bees on the same day,
the third of June, twenty-four hours after closing the second. The like
was done to other royal cells successively, during the subsequent days.

Every moment of the seventh, we expected the queen to leave the royal
cell shut on the thirtieth of May. The seven days had elapsed. The
wav