VOL. XLVI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 83 



From the vast number of eggs which the queen lays in a season, it is absolutely 

 necessary that she should have a great store of male sperm, to impregnate her 

 eggs ; and as the eggs are not sensibly large in her body for 6 months after her 

 coition with the males, who die, or are killed, in August, and she does not 

 begin to lay from that time till February or March ; it is therefore necessary 

 that she should have a great store of male sperm within her, to impregnate all 

 the eggs she lays from that time, till June or July, when young drones or males 

 are hatched, who are not designed for her use, but for the young queens, who 

 go oft' with the swarms, or for the young queen who succeeds the old one 

 in the old hive ; since the drones are great feeders, and no workers ; and are of 

 no use, but to give a sufficient store of sperm to the mother bee ; as the work- 

 ing bees have so many enemies to deprive them of their store, they cannot be 

 maintained during the winter, even if their life should last so long ; and as it is 

 probable that each male has but one act of coition with the queen, as they are 

 so cold, and take so much caressing before they act, and, by M. Reaumur's 

 observation, die soon after the act is over, when probably their whole store of 

 sperm is exhausted in that act, as soon as the queen has got as much sperm 

 lodged in the proper reservoir, as is sufficient to impregnate all her future eggs, 

 the males are no longer of use ; and if those who have acted die, those who have 

 not, being of no further use, are killed by the working bee, out of economy to 

 save their winter store, when probably by nature they could live but few days 

 more ; as we find the silk-worm moth dies soon after the eggs are laid, as well 

 males as females. It seems therefore necessary that the queen should breed so 

 many males as, by one act of coition from each, may impregnate all her eggSj 

 and that the working bee should dispatch them, as soon as that is over, and a 

 Store is lodged. 



There are 2 vessels described by Swammerdam in the mother- bee ; one of 

 which is placed between the two lobes of the ovarium, which he supposes to be a 

 bladder to contain air ; the other is a spherical vessel, seated close by the common 

 duct, in which the eggs fall from the lobes of the ovarium, which he supposes 

 is to ooze out a juice to moisten the eggs in their passage. I take one of thescj, 

 but most probably the last, to be the reservoir and repository of the male sperm, 

 wherein it is lodged from the act of coition, till the eggs are enlarged, and pass 

 through the adjoining duct from the 1 lobes of the ovarium. 



Since the preservation and increase of bees are evidently beneficial to the pub- 

 lic, I approve very much of M. Reaumur's instructions in driving bees from a 

 full hive into an empty one, in case it can be done time enough to have new 

 work, sufficient for the queen to lay her eggs in in spring ; since they can be 

 fed at very little expence, if care be taken to keep them in a middle state of 

 stupefaction, neither too hot nor cold, during the winter : but I approve nmch 



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