J. HUNTER ON THE QUEEN BEE. 131 



ceived is sufficient for her whole life-time. We prove these hypo- 

 theses as follows : — Eggs laid in drone cells never produce aught 

 but drones — a queen born with her wings imperfect rendering her 

 unable to fly, or one born after drones are all dead (generally by 

 August), and consequently unable to mate, lays eggs indiscriminately 

 in both drone and worker cells, but all alike produce drones. The 

 verification of this is very easy, we have but to deprive a stock of its 

 queen in autumn, and provided there are eggs in the hive, young 

 queens are sure to be reared, and as surely they will become drone 

 breeders; the experiment has been so many times repeated that the 

 fact is now incontestible. That a queen mates but once in her life, 

 the introduction of the Ligurian bee into England enables us to 

 prove. This variety has the reputation of being a better one than 

 our own native bee — and it is a common practice to import annually 

 from Italy fertile queens, which, by a little skilful management, are 

 made to take the places of the rightful sovereigns in our English 

 hives. The Ligurian bee is gaily striped with yellow bands, and we 

 quickly find the original black bees are dying out, and replaced by 

 the easily distinguished Italians, and while this naturalized queen 

 lives, the bees of her hive are thorough-bred Italians. I will pre- 

 sently dissect out, and display the contents of the spermatheca of 

 a fertile queen, which will exhibit many thousands of the spermato- 

 zoa, with their characteristic contorted movements. I will then 

 perform the same operation on a virgin queen, when we shall find the 

 contents of the spermatheca a limpid fluid only, not a trace of the 

 spermatic filaments. My namesake, the great surgeon, attempted 

 to fertilize drone eggs by artificial impregnation from the sperma- 

 theca of a queen — he failed with the bee, but succeeded with the 

 silkworm moth. Dr. Donoff is stated to have been more successful, 

 and I see no reason why the experiment should at all times fail. 

 Cases sometimes occur, when a hive is queenless, that one or more 

 workers will develop the power of ovipositing ; it is reasonable to 

 suppose from their diminutive size and general non-perfection of 

 their organs, that the functions of the drone had not been performed ; 

 certain it is that eggs of a fertile worker produce drones only, and in 

 one solitary case, where such a worker came into my hands for dis- 

 section, although I found ovaries and eggs, I could discover no sper- 

 matheca. It has been a common subject for authors to dilate upon 

 the respect and reverence bees pay to their queen, and the valour 

 with which they defend her. This, although very pretty, I am sorry 



