eggs, which are to produce a further addition of neuters and a supply of drones. The loss of their queen is soon communicated to the inhabitants of the hive, confusion ensues, and labour is suspended. They group about in clusters of a dozen or more, and after about a day’s intermission of the ordinary routine of labour they appear to have come to a resolution. Bustle is again renewed, and several, as the delegates of the general body, pass into the midst of the neuter brood cells, tear down the separating walls of three, kill two of the very young larvæ, convert these three cells into one by fitting alterations, and transfer the care of this vermicle to the nursing-bees. Under their care, they heedfully feeding her with the royal jelly, her transformations speedily are completed, and whilst this is being done, drones are coming forth. As soon as she is ready she is aided to quit her cell. She now leaves the hive, and the drones which are already perfected accompany her; she makes her wedding tour in the air, and quickly returns as the queen-regnant of the rejoicing monarchy, whose vacant throne is again royally occupied, and the entire harmony of the hive renewed. The quantity of pollen that is collected in the course of a season, by the diligence of the bees, has been estimated at from sixty to seventy pounds; and the weight of the honey, so affluent a hive will produce by abstraction from the bees, is calculated at as much as sometimes fifty pounds. This, however, must be vastly exceeded by the quantity collected, as it is being constantly consumed for sustenance, and for the secretion of the raw material of wax, as well as for the production of the liquid which converts this into its mouldable consistency. It is possible to estimate pretty nearly the quantity of honey required for each secretion of the raw material, by finding what the honey-bag will contain when gorged, as it is this quantity which seems to make the eight scales of it upon the ventral plates, for they cannot convey more up when they hang themselves in the festoons to secern it. But it is impossible to know what addition this liquid from their mouths makes to it when they manipulate it into its plastic state, other bees often undertaking this task, which may apply themselves to it with a larger stock than the wax secreters possess, they being perhaps already exhausted by their labours. It is a singular fact that wax is more rapidly and largely made by feeding the bees with dissolved sugar than from the honey they collect themselves, the sugar thus evidently containing more of its productive elements.