Having in the former portion of my lecture referred to the very early period at which the attention of man was drawn to the honey-bee; to the profit which may be derived from a judicious culture of that valuable insect; to the various members of which a family of bees consists; to their very great powers of increase; and to the very curious and wonderful contrivances exhibited in their anatomical structure; I now proceed to detail to you one of the most curious and astonishing facts which their marvellous history affords, viz., the power they possess of supplying the place of a lost queen. When such a misfortune befals them, provided there be any eggs in the worker-cells, or even grubs that are not more than three days old, they immediately break down three worker-cells, destroy two of the eggs or grubs, as the case may be, surround the third with the walls of a cell peculiarly appropriate for raising queens, and by administering to the inmate a particular food called royal jelly, they are enabled to raise up a bee possessing every attribute of royalty, which, but for the peculiar diet and the large royal cradle with which it was supplied, would have turned out simply a working bee. A knowledge of this power in the bee has long been familiar to a few foreigners, though for a time discredited in this country. In consequence of this discovery, apiarians have been enabled to increase their stocks of bees by means of what has been called artificial swarming. Should there be no suitable egg or grub in the hive from which to replace a lost sovereign, so heavily is the calamity felt, that she is mourned over with so fervent and sincere a regret that it would seem as if a disaster had befallen them of so dire a nature as to threaten the dissolution of the community, and, for a time, no successor that could be presented to them would be acceptable. Still this exhibition of grief is not of long continuance; for though within the first twenty-four or thirty hours they are so inconsolable as not only to reject, but even to sacrifice, any other queen that might be presented for their acceptance, yet, after the expiration of the period I have named, their sorrow becomes mitigated, so that, on being presented with a stranger queen, she is no longer treated as a stranger, but even cordially received, and joyfully admitted to the honors of sovereignty. If the family have neither a queen presented to them, nor eggs, nor grabs of a suitable age, they either pine gradually away or join some other establishment, transferring their allegiance to the sovereign thereof, and rewarding their new associates for their hospitality by an importation of the stores of the deserted hive. Before I take leave of the all-important lady I have been describing, I will just refer to the time the eggs which she respectively lays require for their full development as perfect bees. The egg of the working bee is hatched in about four days, when it becomes a grub,