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



young queen continues her wedding flights — which in the 

 warm summer she does at the very most for four weeks, 

 but in the cool spring or autumn, when life and develop- 

 ment are slower in the hive, she still pursues for even 

 five or six weeks — she is capable of becoming properly 

 fertile." But some queens continue to fly long after it 

 is hopeless, cases being recorded in which they have 

 gone on for ten or twelve weeks. The same observer 

 speaks of having had several young queens which were 

 either lame in their wings or bom in. a continued cold 

 season, so that they were prevented from leaving the 

 hive, and thus developed into confirmed drone-breeders. 

 The queen leaves the hive every fine day till her purpose 

 is accomplished, and this led Bevan and others to surmise 

 that she met successively with several drones till one Of 

 them lost his life in consequence ; but we do not find in 

 later authorities any confirmation nor even mention of 

 this conjecture, and it may be set down as entirely im- 

 probable. In the case observed by Von Klipstein, and 

 referred to above (page 22), as the queen met with her 

 death shortly after, he sent her to Leuckart, who found 

 that from this obviously first impregnation her organs 

 were so completely filled as to imply no need for a second. 

 Leuckart has elsewhere stated that a queen's spermatheca 

 is capable of containing twenty-five millions of sperma- 

 tozoa, so that there need be no wonder at the fact of a 

 single fecundation being sufficient to answer for her 

 entire term of existence. 



