72 EXPERIMENTS OF HUBER. 



on voie tomber des pelotons des bourdons, qui fecondent la 

 mere ; celle-ci est attackee a Vim d'eux, comme on le remarque 

 chez les papillons." Now did this act take place externally 

 or internally of the hive ? If the former, the statement of 

 Huber cannot be correct ; for according to him it is per- 

 formed by a single drone, but whether inside or outside the 

 hive, he does not mention. If it were performed interiorly 

 of the hive, Huber cannot be correct again, for he declares 

 that the copulation never takes place in the hive, and in 

 regard to the latter point, all the advocates for the copulation 

 of the queen and the drone, appear to agree. The circum- 

 stance of the queen being surrounded by a cluster of drones, 

 is much against the act of copulation taking place in the 

 open air, and as to a cluster of drones being seen in the hive, 

 as M. Forlani has represented them, it could not have pos- 

 sibly been seen in the hive, generally in use in Carniola; and 

 however skilful M. Forlani may have been in the manage- 

 ment of his apiary, we know his countrymen to be as igno- 

 rant and besotted in the management of their bees, or the 

 natural history of the insect, as a Siberian boor. 



Mr. Huber once tantalized one of his queens by confining 

 her for the long period of thirty-five days, during which 

 time she had no communication whatever with the drones. 

 In his relation, however, of this circumstance, he commits 

 one of his usual inconsistencies ; for he says that he 

 confined the queen by contracting the entrance of the 

 hive, but that, nevertheless, the working bees and the 

 drones could go about their respective labours and amuse- 

 ments. Now, Huber could not have been ignorant of 

 the relative magnitude of the three species ; and therefore 

 in what manner the entrance of the hive could be so con- 

 tracted as to allow the egress of the drone, which is larger 

 than the queen, and yet so diminutive as to prevent her 

 leaving the hive, is a problem which Huber alone can solve. 



On the thirty. sixth day, the queen was emancipated from 



