BEE. 433 



first twenty days of her life, the eggs of workers ought to be laid ; 

 but it would seem that, intercourse with the male being denied, 

 the first set of eggs become effete ; they waste away, and perhaps 

 dropfrom the animal. A fact mentioned by M. Huber, in a sub- 

 sequent page, seems to support this notion. " The body of those 

 queens whose impregnation has been retarded, is shorter than 

 common : the extremity remains slender, while the first two rings 

 next the thorax are uncommonly swoIn." On dissecting the dou- 

 ble ovary, both branches were found to be equally expanded and 

 equally sound ; but the eggs were apparently not placed so closely 

 together as in common queens. A queen in ordinary circum- 

 stances, lays about 3000 eggs in the space of two months, which is 

 at the rate of 50 a day. It was not correctly ascertained, whether 

 the queens whose impregnation was retarded, laid a number of 

 drone eggs corresponding to the whole number of eggs, both of 

 workers and drones which they ought to have deposited : but it is 

 certain, that they laid a greater number of drone eggs than they 

 ought naturally to have done. The hives in which only drones are 

 produced always failed ; and, indeed, generally broke up before 

 the queens had done laying ; for, after the lapse of some time, the 

 workers finding themselves overwhelmed with drones, fruges 

 consumere nati, and receiving no increase of their own number, 

 abandoned the hive, and at the same time dispatched their unfortu- 

 nate sovereign. In order to throw some light on this curious 

 subject, M. Huber suggests the propriety of instituting analogous 

 experiments on other insects ; by retarding, for example, the 

 impregnation of the females of other species of bees, of wasps, 

 and of butterflies. 



In the course of additional experiments, some other curi- 

 ous points in the natural history of the bee were accidentally 

 illustrated. Thus, a queen, twenty. seven days old, having been 

 impregnated on the 31st of October, did not begin to lay at the 

 expiration of forty-six hours, apparently on account of the weather 

 having, in the mean time, become extremely cold. She was con. 

 fined in a hive all the winter ; and on the 4th of April ensuing, 

 prodigious numbers both of larves and pupes were found ; and all 

 of them produced drones. 



" Here, as in the other experiments, retardation had rendered 

 the queen incapable of laying the eggs of workers : but this result is 



vol. v. 2 F , 



