But, in all likelihood, the true reason why the queen sleeps in a short gown made of tough, coarse fibre must be looked for somewhere back in the old ancestral history of the honey-bee. It is probably safe to consider the complete worker cocoon as a comparatively recent introduction, evolved to meet some necessity arising since the bee-people became a civilised race. But what its true origin was appears to be out of the reach of all conjecture. A curious fact is that these cocoons are never removed from the cell. They remain fixed to its sides throughout, and though the cell is otherwise carefully cleaned after the young bee has vacated it, the cocoon is never interfered with, but continues as a permanent lining to the cell. The same thing occurs with all successive generations, each bee leaving her swaddling-clothes behind her, until so great an accumulation occurs that the cell becomes too small for breeding any but a puny, undersized race. With wild bees, where the nest has been constructed in a tree-hollow, and there is usually plenty of surplus room, the old brood-combs may be eventually abandoned and fresh ones built farther on. Thus the stock generally shifts its station from year to year. These natural bee-nests, or bee-bikes, as country people call them, often reach a great age. Sometimes a swarm will get under the rafters in a house-roof, and may be left undisturbed for generations. In one case bees were traditionally supposed to have inhabited a blind loft in a farmhouse continuously for forty or fifty years. A legend rife in the village credited them with having stored many tons of honey, but when the stock was sulphured little more than a vast accumulation of comb was discovered. This comb was of all ages, from a few weeks old to an unconjecturable number of years. Much of it was perfectly black, and the cells choked up with pupa cocoons. The fact that egg-laying is continued in these combs where others are not available, even though the capacity of the cells has been greatly reduced, seems to cast an added doubt on the theory that the size of the cell is responsible for the fertilisation or non-fertilisation of the egg as it is deposited by the queen. Very old drone-comb is sometimes found in use for breeding purposes where the cells have become no larger than those used for normal worker-brood. And yet the queen continues to lay in them unimpregnated eggs. The whole question is still hedged round with difficulties.