36 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



present (Plate XV ill), to my readers. The small globu- 

 lar sac (Z>), communicating with the oviduct (E], which 

 he thought secreted a fluid for sticking the eggs to the 

 base of the cells, is the seminal reservoir, or spermatheca. 

 Any one Avho will carefully dissect a queen-bee, may see 

 this sac, even with the naked eye. 



It will be seen that the ovaries (G and H] are double, 

 each consisting of an amazing number of ducts* filled with 

 eggs, which gradually increase in size.f 



Huber, while experimenting to ascertain how the queen 

 was fecundated, confined some young ones to their hives, 

 by contracting the entrances, so that they were more than 

 three weeks old before they could go in search of the 

 drones. To his amazement, the queens whose impregna- 

 tion was thus retarded never laid any eggs but such as 

 produced drones ! 



He tried this experiment repeatedly, but always with 

 the same result. Bee-keepers, even from the tune of 

 Aristotle, had observed that all the brood in a hive were 

 occasionally drones. Before attempting to explain this 

 astonishing fact, I must call the attention of the reader to 

 another of the mysteries of the bee-hive. 



It has already been stated, that the workers are proved 

 by dissection to be females which under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances are barren. Occasionally, some of them 

 appear to be sufficiently developed to be capable of laying 

 eggs ; but these eggs, like those of queens whose impreg- 

 nation has been retarded, always produce drones ! Some- 



* The ducts in this cut are represented as more numerous than those in Swam- 

 merdam's drawing. 



t Since the first edition of this work was issued, I have ascertained that Posel 

 (page 54) describes the oviduct of the queen, the spermatheca and its contents, 

 and the use of the latter in impregnating the passing egg. His work was published 

 at Munich, in 1784. It seems also from his work (page 36), that before the inves- 

 tigations of Huber, Jansha, the bee-keeper royal of Maria Theresa, had discovered 

 the fact that the young queens leave their hive in search of the drones. 



