the division separating the two stages, that she
gnawed at them to enlarge the passage: the workers approached her, and
also laboured with their teeth, and made every exertion to enlarge the
entrance to her prison, but ineffectually. On the second day, the queen
could no longer retain her eggs: they escaped in spite of her, and fell
at random. Then we conceived that the bees would convey them into the
small cells of the lower stage, and we sought them there with the utmost
assiduity; but I can safely affirm there was not one. The eggs that the
queen still laid the third day disappeared as the first. We again sought
them in the small cells, but none were there. The fact is, they are ate
by the workers; and this is what has deceived the naturalists, who
supposed them carried away. They have observed the misplaced eggs
disappear, and, without farther investigation, have asserted that the
bees convey them elsewhere: they take them, indeed, not to convey them
any where, but to devour them. Thus nature has not charged bees with the
care of placing the eggs in the cells appropriated for them, but she has
inspired females themselves with sufficient instinct to know the species
of eggs they are about to lay, and to deposit them in suitable cells.
This has already been observed by M. de Reaumur, and here my
observations correspond with his. Thus it is certain that in the natural
state, when fecundation takes place at the proper time, and the queen
has suffered from nothing, she is never deceived in the choice of the
cells where her eggs are to be deposited; she never fails to lay those
of workers in small cells, and those of males in large ones. The
distinction is important, for the same certainty of instinct is no
longer conspicuous in the conduct of those females whose impregnation
has been deferred. I was oftener than once deceived respecting the eggs
that such queens laid, for they were deposited indiscriminately in small
cells and those of drones; and not aware of their instinct having
suffered, I conceived that the eggs in small cells would produce
workers; therefore I was very much surprised, when, at the moment they
should have been hatched, the bees closed up the cells, and
demonstrated, by anticipation, that the included worms would change into
drones; they actually became males; those produced in small cells were
small, those in large cells large. Thus I must warn observers, who would
repeat my experiments on queens that