22 THE BEE AS AN INSECT. [Ch. i. 



accounts is absolutely invariable, would seem to be the 

 extent of the provision, and it is one that in ordinary 

 circumstances would preclude the recurrence of in-and-in 

 breeding. A confirmation of these views is afforded 

 from the interesting experience of Captain von Balden- 

 stein with his one Italian stock maintained by itself for 

 seven years, who found that all this time, with one exception, 

 the young queens produced bastard workers, clearly 

 proving that all but that one were impregnated by the 

 drones of other colonies. 



The drone that happens to be the selected husband is 

 by no means so favoured as at first sight might appear, 

 for it is a law of Nature that the bridegroom does not 

 survive the wedding-day. His death, however, is doubt- 

 less generally instantaneous, whereas in other case it 

 would probably have been one of torture or starvation. 

 In 1867 the German apiarian Von Klipstein was witness 

 of an instance of the wedding ceremony, when a young 

 queen, who was leading a swarm, became detached from 

 it and settled upon a currant bush, where she was joined 

 by a drone ; after a few seconds the two flew away to- 

 gether for three yards and then fell to the ground, when 

 the queen disengaged herself, and the drone was found 

 to be dead. But we learn from the American Bee 

 yournal, of March 1861, that two similar cases were 

 observed in the United States some years earlier than 

 this. The latter of these two agreed with the above in 

 showing the immediate death of the male bee, the rule 



