OF NATURAL HISTORY. 345 



ther confirmed In this opinion, by uniformly obferving that a whitifli 

 liquid fubftance furrounded each egg which turned out to be fertile ; 

 but that thofe eggs round which no fuch fubfiance was to be found 

 were always barren. The working bees, or thofe which colled from 

 flowers the materials of wax, have generally been confidered as be- 

 longing to neither fex. But Mr Schirach, a German Naturalift, in 

 his H'ljlory of the ^een of the Bees, maintains, that all the com- 

 mon bees are females in a difguifed or barren ftate ; thac the organs 

 which diftinguifli the fex, and particularly the ovaria, are either 

 obliterated, or, on account of their minutenefs, have not hitherto 

 been difcovered ; that, in the early period of its exillence, every one 

 of thefe bees is capable of becoming a queen-bee, if the community 

 choofe to nurfe it in a certain manner, and to raife it to that diRin- 

 guifhed rank ; and that the queen-bee lays only two kinds of eggs, 

 namely, thofe that are to produce drones or males, and thofe-from 

 which the working bees are to proceed. 



The conjedure of Maraldi concerning the impregnation of the 

 eggs after they are depofued in the cells, as well as the obfervaticns 

 of Mr Schirach concerning the fex of the working bees, have been 

 completely verified by the experiments of Mr Debravv. Both Ma- 

 raldi and Reaumur had long ago difcovered, that, in every hive, be- 

 fide the large drones, there are males or drones as fmall as the work- 

 ing bees. By means of glafs-hives, Mr Debraw obferved, that the 

 queen-bee begins to depofit her eggs in the cells on the fourth or 

 fifth day after the bees begin to work. On the firfl: or fecond day 

 after the eggs are placed in the cells, he perceived feveral bees fink- 

 ing the pofterior parts of their bodies into each cell, where they con- 

 tinued but a Ihort time. After they had retired, he faw plamly with 

 the naked eye a fmall quantity of whitifh liquor left in the bottom 

 of each cell that contained an egg. Next day he found that this 

 liquor was abforbed into the egg, which, on the fourth day, is 

 f X X hatched. 



