hose
cells where they observe the eggs deposited, two lines from the mouth.

Permit me, Sir, to digress a moment from the subject, to give the result
of an experiment which seems interesting. Bees, I say, are not charged
with the care of transporting into cells, the eggs misplaced by the
queen: and, judging by the single instance I have related, you will
think me well entitled to deny this feature of their industry. However,
as several authors have maintained the reverse, and even demanded our
admiration of them in conveying the eggs, I should explain clearly that
they are deceived.

I had a glass hive constructed of two stages; the higher was filled with
combs of large cells, and the lower with those of common ones. A kind of
division, or diaphraghm, separated these two stages from
each other, having at each side an opening for the passage of the
workers from one stage to the other, but too narrow for the queen. I
put a considerable number of bees into this hive; and, in the upper
part, confined a very fertile queen that had just finished her great
laying of male eggs; therefore she had only those of workers to lay, and
she was obliged to deposit them in the surrounding large cells from the
want of others. My object in this arrangement will already be
anticipated. My reasoning was simple. If the queen laid workers' eggs in
the large cells, and the bees were charged with transporting them if
misplaced, they would infallibly take advantage of the liberty allowed
to pass from either stage: they would seek the eggs deposited in the
large cells, and carry them down to the lower stage containing the cells
adapted for that species. If, on the contrary, they left the common eggs
in the large cells, I should obtain certain proof that they had not the
charge of transporting them.

The result of this experiment excited my curiosity extremely. We
observed the queen several days without intermission. During the first
twenty-four hours, she persisted in not laying a single egg in the
surrounding cells; she examined them one after another, but passed on
without insinuating her belly into one. She was restless, and traversed
the combs in all directions: her eggs appeared an oppressive burden, but
she persisted in retaining them rather than they should be deposited in
cells of unsuitable diameter. The bees, however, did not cease to pay
her homage, and treat her as a mother. I was amused to observe, when she
approached the edges of