THE QUEEN. 55 



passed by me, so near that I struck them down with my hand- 

 kerchief. I then discovered that this bitter battle was but a 

 love-suit. The two insects, stunned and motionless, were 

 coupled. The copulation had taken place in the air, at the in- 

 stant when I had seen one of them falling on the other, twenty 

 or twenty-five feet above the ground. 



"It was a queen-bee and a drone. Persuaded that I had 

 killed them, I made no scruple of piercing them both with the 

 same pin. But the pain recalled them to life again, and they 

 promptly separated. This separation was violent, and resulted 

 in the tearing off of the drone 's organ ( 188 ) which remained 

 attached to the queen. The queen was yet alive on the follow- 

 ing morning. For some time after her separation from the 

 drone, she brushed the last ring of her abdomen, as though 

 trying to extract the organ of the drone. She endeavored to 

 bend herself, probably in order to bring this part within reach 

 of her jaws, which were constantly moving, but the pin pre- 

 vented her from attaining her aim. Her activity soon de- 

 creased, and she ceased to move." — (Alex. Levi, Journal Des 

 Fermes, Paris, 1869.) 



Messrs. Gary and Otis had witnessed a similar occurrence 

 in July, 1861. (American Bee Journal, Vol. I, page 66.) 



124. It is now well demonstrated that in a single mating, 

 a queen is fertilized for life, although in a few rare instances 

 they have been said to mate two days in succession, perhaps 

 because the first mating was insufficient. 



135. After the queen has re-entered the hive, she gets 

 rid of the organ of the drone by drawing it with her claws, 

 and she is sometimes helped in this work by the worker-bees. 

 The drone dies in the act of fertilization. (188.) 



126. Although fertilization of the queen in confinement 

 has been tried by many, it has never been successful. Those 

 who, from time to time, claimed to have succeeded were evi- 

 dently deceiving themselves through ill-made experiments. 

 (187.) 



127. Having ascertained that the queen-bee is fecund- 

 ated in the open air and on the wing", Huber still could not 

 form any satisfactory conjecture how eggs were fertilized 



