72 MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 



ligent servant, Frances Burnens, developed so many interesting 

 facts, demonstrated the fact of the queen's maternity. This 

 author's work, second edition, published in Edinburgh, in 1808, 



Fig. 14. 



Qiieen Bee, magnified. 



gives a full history of his wonderful observations and experi- 

 ments, and must ever rank with 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. 11, a, a) are very large, 

 nearly filling her long abdomen. The tubes already described 

 as composing them are very numerous, while the spermatheca 

 (Fig. 11, e) is plainly visible. This is muscular, receives 

 abundant nerves, and thus, without doubt, may or may not 

 be compressed to force the sperm cells in contact with the 

 eggs as they pass by the duct. Leuckart estimates that the 

 spermatheca will hold more than 25,000,000 spermatozoa. 



The possession of the ovaries and attendant organs, is 

 the chief structural peculiarity which marks the queen, as 

 these are the characteristic marks of females among all ani- 

 mals. But she has other peculiarities worthy of mention : 

 She is longer than either drones or workers, being more than 

 seven-eighths of an inch in length, and, with her long tapering 

 abdomen, is not without real grace and beauty. The queen's 

 mouth organs, too, are developed to a less degree than are 

 those of the worker-bees. Her jaws (Fig. 21, b) or mandibles 



