Kirby, "in sublime fertur maritum infelicem petens, qui voluptatem brevem vitâ emat." Reaumur thought sexual union necessary to impregnation, and tried many experiments to ascertain the fact; such as confining a queen under a glass in company with drones: and these experiments were repeated by Huber. Both these naturalists witnessed the solicitations and advances of the queens towards the drones, "nihilominùs, coeuntia tempore quovis conspicere non possent." Reaumur fancied he saw it; there is, however, very great reason to believe that he was mistaken: the queens so exposed all proved barren. Swammerdam asserted that clipping the wings of queens rendered them sterile, a fact which militates very much against his own theory of impregnation being produced by a seminal aura, but strongly confirms the theory of Huber; as in all probability the mutilating experiments of Swammerdam were made upon virgin queens, which thereby lost the power of quitting the hives. Huber found that clipping the wings of impregnated queens produced no effect upon them; it neither diminished the respectful attentions of the workers, nor interfered with their laying of eggs. Why impregnation can only take place in the open air and when the insects are on the wing, at present remains a mystery.

The young virgin queens, generally, set out in quest of the males, the day after they are settled

in their new abode, which is usually the fifth day of their existence as queens, two or three days being passed in captivity, one in the native hive after their liberation, and the fifth in the new dwelling. The ancients seem to have been very

solicitous to establish for the bees a character of inviolable chastity: Pliny observes, "Apium enim coitus visus nunquam." And Virgil endeavours to support the same opinion:

"But of all customs which the bees can boast,
'Tis this that claims our admiration most;
That none will Hymen's softer joys approve,
Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love:
But all a long virginity maintain,

And bring forth young without a mother's pain."

It was the opinion of most ancient philosophers that bees derived their origin from the putrid carcases of animals. Vide Chap. II. Some also have supposed them to proceed from the parts of fructification in flowers. Virgil, borrowing as usual from Aristotle, among the rest:

"Well might the Bard, on fancy's frolic wing,
Bid, from fresh flowers, enascent myriads spring,
Raise genial ferment in the slaughter'd steer,
And people thence his insect-teeming year;
A fabled race, whom no soft passions move,
The smile of duty nor the glance of love."

EVANS.

"To vindicate, in some measure, the character of the insect queen, Mr. Wildman boldly dared

to stem the torrent, and revive the long forgotten idea suggested by Mr. Butler in his Feminine Monarchy, that queens produce queens only, and that the common bees are the mothers of common bees." But all these fanciful notions must yield to the clear and decisive experiments of Huber, who has satisfactorily shown that the queen is the general mother of all; he has also resolved the causes of former mistaken opinions. Many apiarians have found a difficulty in admitting the theory of Huber, in consequence of the very great disproportion in the number of the sexes, there being only one female to several hundred males, and one impregnation being, in his opinion, all that is required to fertilize myriads of eggs. The number of drones may be considered as in accordance, in some degree, with the general profusion of nature: we find her abounding with supernumeraries in a great variety of instances, in the blossoms of trees and flowers, as well as in the relative number of one sex to the other among animals. Huber conceives that it was necessary there should be a great number of drones, that the queen might be sure of finding ome, in her excursion through the expanse of the atmosphere, and run no risk of sterility.

In page 26 I have stated the opinion of Mr. Dobbs, that a queen has intercourse with several drones; and what I have also stated the au

upon

thority of Mr. Hunter, in page 34, with respect to the silk-moth and other insects, gives countenance to that opinion: nor do I see its inconsistency with the discovery made by Huber. Though there is reason to believe that the act proves fatal to one devoted drone, yet those that are so fortunate as to obtain the first favours of her majesty, may escape uninjured. If the conjecture which I have thus hazarded be correct, it will appear less surprising that so many drones should be brought into existence.

The queen begins to lay her eggs as soon as a few portions of comb are completely formed. By the time that combs five or six inches square are constructed, eggs, honey and bee-bread will be found in them. Huber states that the laying usually commences forty-six hours after the intercourse with the male; and that during the eleven succeeding months, the eggs of workers only are laid; after which a considerable and uninterrupted laying of drones' eggs commences. This period may be retarded by the temperature of the atmosphere. Huber relates an instance where, the weather having become suddenly cold, after an impregnation which took place on the 31st of October, that queen did not lay till the March following. The effects of retardation will be noticed presently. Twenty days after the queen has begun to lay the eggs of drones, "the working bees," says Huber,

"construct the ROYAL CELLS, in which the queens, without discontinuing the laying of male eggs, deposit, at the interval of one, two or three days, those eggs from which the queens are successively to spring." This laying of the eggs of drones, which is called the great laying, usually happens in May. There seems to be a secret relation between the production of these eggs, and the construction of royal cells: the laying commonly lasts thirty days, and regularly on the 20th or 21st day, as has been already observed, royal cells are founded. When the larvae, hatched from the eggs laid by the queen in the royal cells, are ready to be transformed to nymphs, this queen leaves the hive, conducting a swarm along with her. A swarm is always led off by a single queen; and Huber remarks that it was necessary for instinct to impel the old queen to lead forth the first swarm; for, being the strongest, she would never fail to overthrow the younger competitors for the throne, near which "the jealous Semiramis of the hive will bear no rival." The queen, having finished her laying of male eggs and of royal eggs, prior to her quitting the old hive, is ready to commence, in the new one, with the laying of workers' eggs, workers being first needed, in order to secure the continuance and prosperity of the newly founded commonwealth. The bees that remain in the old hive take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent