18 THE DRONE. 
“ Aware that the males usually leave the hive in the warmest part 
of the day in summer, it was natural to suppose that if the queens 
were obliged to go out for fecundation, instinct would induce them to 
do so at the same time as the others. 
“ At eleven in the forenoon, we placed ourselves opposite to a hive 
containing an unimpregnated queen five days old. The sun had shone 
from his rising, the air was very warm, and the males began to leave 
the hives. We then enlarged the entrance (which had been contracted 
to prevent the egress of the queens) of that selected for observation, 
and paid great attention to the bees entering and departing. The 
males appeared and immediately took flight. Soon afterwards the 
young queen came to the entrance; at first she did not, but during a 
little time traversed the board, brushing her belly with her hind legs, 
neither workers nor males bestowing any notice on her. At last she 
took flight; when several feet from the hive she returned and ap- 
proached it as if to examine the place of her departure, perhaps judg- 
ing this precaution necessary to recognize it; she then flew away, de- 
scribing horizontal circles twelve or fifteen feet above the earth. We 
contracted the entrance of the hive that she might not return unob- 
served, and placing ourselves in the centre of the circles described in 
her flight the more easily to follow her and witness all her motions, but 
she did not remain long in a situation favorable for our observations, 
and rapidly rose out of sight. We resumed our place before the hive; 
and in seven minutes the young queen returned to the entrance of a 
habitation which she had left for the first time. Having found no ex- 
ternal evidence of fecundation, we allowed her to enter. In a quarter 
of an hour she re-appeared, and after brushing herself as before, took 
flight; then returning to examine the hive, she rose so high that we 
soon lost sight of her. This second absence was much longer than 
the first, it occupied twenty-seven minutes. We now found her ina 
state very different from that in which she was after the former ex- 
cursion, the organs distended by a substance thick and hard, very 
much resembling the matter in the vessels of males, completely similar 
to it in color and consistence.” 
There is not the least doubt in my mind as to the correctness of 
Huber’s opinion on this point, but many seem to doubt it, and I have 
