Description of Queen Bee. 83 
Huber, to whom every apiarist owes so much, and who, 
though blind, through the aid of his devoted wife and 
intelligent servant, Francis Burnens, developed so many 
interesting truths, demonstrated the fact of the queen’s 
maternity. This author’s work, second edition, published 
in Edinburgh in 1808, gives a full history of his wonderful 
observations and experiments, and must ever rank with 
the work of Langstroth as a classic, worthy of study by 
all. 
The queen, then, is the mother bee; in other words, a 
fully developed female. Her ovaries (Fig. 23, @,@) are 
very large, nearly filling her long abdomen. The tubes 
already described as composing them are very numerous, 
there being more than one hundred, while the spermatheca 
(Fig. 23,5 4) is plainly visible. This is a membranous 
sac, hardly 1-20 of aninch indiameter. It is fairly covered 
with interlacing nerves, which give to it its light, glistening 
appearance. The spermatheca has a short duct, joined to 
which is the duct of the double appendicular glands which 
closely embrace the spermatheca. These are described by 
Siebold and Leuckart, who suppose that they furnish 
mucus to render the sperm cells more mobile, so that they 
will move more freely. Leuckart also describes muscles, 
which connect with the duct of the spermatheca (Fig. 23), 
which he thinks act as sphincters or dilators of this duct, to 
restrain or permit the passage of the spermatozoa. When 
the duct is opened the ever active sperm cells rush out, 
aided in their course by the secretion from the appended 
glands. Cheshire figures what he calls a gland about the 
duct, which he supposes so thins the sperm that the sperm- 
atozoa are economized. Such a gland as he describes would 
need a duct which he does not mention. He also suggests 
that the duct from the spermatheca to the oviduct is double; 
that a direct route is open when the male meets the queen, 
and a circuitous one later for the passage of the sperm 
cells, when eggs are to be fecundated. I think it far more 
likely that this is regulated by the very muscular oviduct, 
which receives very numerous nerves, and so must be 
exceedingly sensitive. Such anatomists as Siebold and 
Leuckart would not in their careful search have missed such 
