e, I consider it an established
fact, when bees lose their queen, and several workers' worms are
preserved in the hive, they enlarge some of their cells, and supply them
not only with a different kind of food, but a greater quantity of it,
and the worms reared in this manner, instead of changing to common bees,
become real queens. I request my readers to reflect on the explanation
you have given of so uncommon a fact, and the philosophical consequences
you have deduced from it. _Contemplation de la Nature, part. II, chap.
27._

In this letter I shall content myself with some account of the figure of
the royal cells constructed by bees around those worms that are destined
for the royal state, and terminate with discussing some points wherein
my observations differ from those of M. Schirach.

Bees soon become sensible of having lost their queen, and in a few hours
commence the labour necessary to repair their loss. First, they select
the young common worms, which the requisite treatment is to convert into
queens, and immediately begin with enlarging the cells where they are
deposited. Their mode of proceeding is curious; and the better to
illustrate it, I shall describe the labour bestowed on a single cell,
which will apply to all the rest, containing worms destined for queens.
Having chosen a worm, they sacrifice three of the contiguous cells:
next, they supply it with food, and raise a cylindrical inclosure
around, by which the cell becomes a perfect tube, with a rhomboidal
bottom; for the parts forming the bottom are left untouched. If the bees
damaged it, they would lay open three corresponding cells on the
opposite surface of the comb, and, consequently, destroy their worms,
which would be an unnecessary sacrifice, and Nature has opposed it.
Therefore, leaving the bottom rhomboidal, they are satisfied with
raising a cylindrical tube around the worm, which, like the other cells
in the comb, is horizontal. But this habitation remains suitable to the
worm called to the royal state only during the first three days of its
existence: another situation is requisite for the other two days it is a
worm. Then, which is so small a portion of its life, it must inhabit a
cell nearly of a pyramidal figure, and hanging perpendicularly; we may
say the workers know it; for, after the worm has completed the third
day, they prepare the place to be occupied by its new lodging. They gnaw
away the cells surrounding the cylindrical tube,