DISCOVERY OF HUMEL. 60 



lay her eggs until forty-six hours after being settled in her 

 new hive, is disproved by repeated experiments. We have, 

 on various occasions, confined the bees, immediately on 

 their being domiciled, and on the following day, a comb of 

 from four to five inches long was distinguishable, in which 

 the queen had begun to lay her eggs. On another occasion, 

 about two hours after the settlement of the swarm, a heavy 

 rain came on, which continued unremittingly for three days 

 with such violence, that not a bee, much less a drone, could 

 leave the hive. Fearing that the bees might be suffering 

 from hunger, we supplied them with some food, and then 

 took the opportunity of examining the combs, and found in 

 the cells not only the eggs of common bees, but also of 

 drones. Now, how were those eggs fecundated ? With 

 the disapproval of the conjecture that it is the parent queen 

 who leaves the hive with the swarm, the question then 

 presents itself, how and when was the virgin queen fecun- 

 dated ? Our own experiments prove that in several 

 instances, she has laid her eggs without ever having left the 

 hive ; she must then at the time of her departure from the 

 parent hive, have been in a fecundated state. But this is 

 no where alleged by Huber, on the contrary, he affirms that 

 the queen must take one of her aerial nights, before she can 

 begin to lay her eggs. The act of coition could not have 

 taken place in the hive, for this is said by Huber never to 

 occur, and, therefore, unless the young queen was fecundated 

 previously to her leaving the parent hive, the eggs must 

 have been impregnated by some other process than that of 

 coition. As the death of the drone is the consequence of 

 the act of coition, it follows that if such an act had taken 

 place during the confinement of the bees, the body of the 

 drone would have been found on the pedestal, but no such 

 occurrence took place. 



We will most willingly award to Huber the benefit of the 

 observations of other naturalists, who are decidedly in 



