GENERATION QUEEN. 253 



nature, perhaps, for the protection of a personage 

 of so great importance, from the fatality consequent 

 upon that act. 



The GENERATION of the bee and larger insects, 

 contrary to that of the common fly, appears to be 

 after the rule of fishes. According to the prevailing 

 opinion, there is no sexual congress among bees, 

 nor is the possibility conceivable, for obvious rea- 

 sons. The QUEEN lays the eggs, which are after- 

 wards fecundated by the drones. Her body contains 

 an ovarium or egg-bag, of which certain insecto- 

 anatomists have actually or fancifully discovered 

 two, terminating in a common channel, which two 

 are filled during the breeding season. Her fruit- 

 fulness is almost beyond conception, and she con- 

 tinues to deposit eggs, as long as a cell remains 

 vacant for them. The title of queen is a mere 

 fiction ; she would be, with far more propriety, 

 styled mother of the bees, as she really is; for 

 although her indispensable existence obtain for her 

 a kind of royal state, she possesses not the smallest 

 power above any other individual of the hive, or 

 any kind of direction in its concerns. As a proof of 

 the veneration of these communities for royalty, 

 should more than one queen remain after the swarms 

 have gone off, the supernumeraries are infallibly and 

 loyally massacred. The young queens never lay eggs 

 in the parent hive, but depart with the swarms, in 

 order to find their place in a new establishment. 



The queen is hatched in a CELL of a totally dif- 

 ferent construction from that of any other bee. Her 

 cell is perpendicular. Those both of the drones 

 and working bees are horizontal. The cell of the 



