56 ERRORS IN THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BEE. 



power of self-fecundation*, or that she was in the strictest 

 sense, a virgin mother queen. The fact, however, having 

 been indisputably established, that the drone is a male, in- 

 vested with the organs of generation, it had an immediate 

 tendency to invalidate the hypothesis of self- fecundation ; 

 for, although the direct manner in which the procreating 

 power of the male was exercised could not be discovered, 

 yet the existence of a number of males being established, it 

 was a natural deduction, that the queen was fecundated, 

 either by sexual coition, or that the egg was fructified after 

 its deposition in the cell. Several almost insuperable ob- 

 jections exist to the former, some of which have a direct 

 tendency to disentitle it to the slightest support ; indeed, 

 we look in vain for any analogy existing in nature confirma- 

 tory of the system as laid down by Huber. The fructifica- 

 tion of an ovarium by a single act of coition with the male, 

 the spirit of which is to operate on every egg, not only then 

 existing in it, but which might be engendered in it for two 

 or three successive years, or even during the whole life of 

 the queen, carries with it, in its very principle, such a gross 

 and manifest absurdity, that bold indeed must have been the 

 individual, who could send it forth as the result of experi- 

 ence, and unbounded, indeed, must have been the credulity 

 of those, who could attach the slightest credence to such a 

 romantic fiction, and yet, strange to relate, it forms one of 



* Bostel is an advocate for the self- fecundation of the queen, as he deprives 

 the drones of the prerogative of being the male in the hive, hut at the same 

 time omits to tell us what they really are. His hypothesis, however, is grounded 

 on the following experiment ; — take the opportunity, when the supernumerary 

 queens have perished ; deprive the swarm of the only queen bee that is in it, 

 and then by means of the bath, invented by Reaumur, take away all the 

 drones that can be found,— then for the queen, which you have taken away, 

 put another at the moment when she is about to pierce the covering of her 

 cell, and place your swarm at such a distance from the other hives, that the 

 drones cannot have access to it, the virginity of the queen is then placed 

 beyond all suspicion, and yet this swarm will nevertheless produce brood, 

 working bees, drones, and queens. We need scarcely add, that there are 

 points in the above system, which would baffle the skill of all the apiarians in 

 the kingdom. 



