mercilessly sacrifice
their worms, and use the wax in constructing a new pyramidal tube, which
they solder at right angles to the first, and work it downwards. The
diameter of this pyramid decreases insensibly from the base, which is
very wide, to the point. During the two days that it is inhabited by
the worm, a bee constantly keeps its head more or less inserted into the
cell, and, when this worker quits it, another comes to occupy its place.
In proportion as the worm grows, the bees labour in extending the cell,
and bring food, which they place before its mouth, and around its body,
forming a kind of cord around it. The worm, which can move only in a
spiral direction, turns incessantly to take the food before its head: it
insensibly descends, and at length arrives at the orifice of the cell.
Now is the time of transformation to a nymph. As any farther care is
unnecessary, the bees close the cell with a peculiar substance
appropriated for it, and there the worm undergoes both its
metamorphoses.

Though M. Schirach supposes that none but worms three days old are
selected for the royal treatment, I am certain of the contrary; and that
the operation succeeds equally well on those of two days only. I must
be permitted to relate at length the evidence I have of the fact, which
will both demonstrate the reality of common worms being converted into
queens, and the little influence which their age has on the effect of
the operation.

I put some pieces of comb, with some workers eggs, in the cells, and of
the same kind as those already hatched, into a hive deprived of the
queen. The same day several cells were enlarged by the bees, and
converted into royal cells, and the worms supplied with a thick bed of
jelly. Five were then removed from those cells, and five common worms,
which, forty-eight hours before we had seen come from the egg
substituted for them. The bees did not seem aware of the change; they
watched over the new worms the same as over those chosen by themselves;
they continued enlarging the cells, and closed them at the usual time.
When they had hatched on them seven days{H}, we removed the cells to
see the queens that were to be produced. Two were excluded, almost at
the same moment, of the largest size, and well formed in every respect.
The term of the other cells having elapsed, and no queen appearing, we
opened them. In one, was a dead queen, but still a nymph; the other two
were empty. The worms had spun th