34; THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



and experiments of his faithful assistants being daily 

 reported, many inquiries and suggestions were made by 

 him, which might not have suggested themselves had he 

 possessed the use of his eyes. 



Few, like him, have such command of both time and 

 money as to be able to prosecute on so grand a scale, for 

 a series of years, the most costly experiments. Having 

 repeatedly verified his most important observations, I take 

 great delight in holding him up to my countrymen as the 

 PKINCE OF APIARIANS. 



To return to his discoveries on the impregnation of the 

 queen-bee. By a long course of careful experiments, he 

 ascertained that, like many other insects, she was fecund- 

 ated in the open air and on the wing ; and that the influ- 

 ence of this connection lasts for several years, and proba- 

 bly for life. He could, however, form no satisfactory con- 

 jecture how eggs were fertilized which were not yet 

 developed in her ovaries. Years ago, the celebrated Dr. 

 John Hunter, and others, supposed that there must be a 

 permanent receptacle for the male sperm, opening into 

 the oviduct. Dzierzon, who must be regarded as one of 

 the ablest contributors of modern times to Apiarian sci- 

 ence, maintains this opinion, and states that he has found 

 such a receptacle filled with a fluid resembling the semen 

 of the drones. He does not seem to have demonstrated 

 his discoveries by any microscopic examinations. 



In the Winter of 1851-2, I submitted for scientific 

 examination several queen-bees to Dr. Joseph Leidy, 

 of Philadelphia, who has the highest reputation both at 

 home and abroad, as a naturalist and microscopic anato- 

 mist. He found in making his dissections a small globular 

 sac, about ^ of an inch in diameter, communicating with 

 the oviduct, and filled with a whitish fluid ; this fluid, 

 when examined under the microscope, abounded in the 



