CAUSE OP THE DISPROPORTION OF THE MALES. 79 



account for the number of drones which are found in the 

 majority of hives, and which seem like a dead weight on the 

 community of the bees, as they do not perform any functions 

 in the hive. At the present day, however, the intention of 

 nature in multiplying them to such an amount, may be 

 ascertained, because as the fecundation cannot take place in 

 the hive, and the queen is consequently obliged to take an 

 excursion in the open air, for the purpose of meeting with 

 a male who can fecundate her, it is necessary that these 

 males should be so numerous that the queen may not 

 experience any great difficulty in meeting with her para- 

 mour. If there were only one or two drones in a hive 

 it might very probably happen that they would not leave the 

 hive at the same time as the queen, or they might fail to 

 encounter each other in their excursions, consequently, the 

 majority of queens would be barren." 



In regard to the young queens, it is certain that they 

 never lay any eggs in the hive in which they were born, in 

 fact, their greatest anxiety appears to be to get out of it as 

 soon as possible, for they are perfectly conscious of their 

 fate, if they remain in it*. 



It must, however, be considered that Huber makes it an 

 unconditional feature in the history of the queen bee, that 

 it is the old queen who leaves the hive with the swarm, a 

 fact which has been disproved not only by native, but by 

 foreign apiarians. We have had the same queen in one hive 

 for four consecutive years ; and even the editor of the 

 Naturalist's Library, in opposition to his great authority, 

 acknowledges that he has had the same queen for three 

 years. Some young queens are more precocious than others 

 in the generation of eggs in their ovarium, and it is on that 



* Miles asserts that two queens sometimes govern in the same hive, and 

 that a large comb then forms the barrier between the two kingdoms. He 

 would have been just as near the truth, had he placed two kings at once on 

 the throne of England. 



