102 DRONES ALWAYS FOUND IN SWARMS. 



fallacy of which, however, can be proved perhaps on the fol- 

 lowing day. 



We will venture to assert in the most positive terms, and 

 we are privileged to do it by above thirty years' experience 

 in bees, that no person ever yet beheld the act of copulation 

 performed by the queen bee and the drone. Even Huber, in 

 the wildest bounds of his imagination, never ventured to 

 impose upon us the fiction that he had actually witnessed 

 the act of coition, although he has seen the queen return 

 from her amours with the drone in the open air, bringing 

 with her his genital organ. Had we no other data on which 

 to discredit the relation of Reaumur, the very nature and 

 disposition of the queen bee would be in itself sufficient to 

 invalidate the whole of his statement. A more shy, timorous 

 insect, perhaps does not exist in the whole animal kingdom 

 than the queen bee ; and so far from allowing any one to be 

 the spectator of her amours, or even of the most insignificant 

 of her actions, and especially under a glass vessel, she will 

 adopt every possible means to conceal herself, and shun the 

 glance of an intrusive eye. There appears to be almost an 

 impenetrable veil spread over all the actions of that extra- 

 ordinary insect, and it is that very mystery which renders 

 the study of the bee so interesting, and at the same time so 

 very difficult. 



When a hive swarms, a number of drones always follow 

 the emigrants, in the proportion of the number of the work- 

 ing bees, for the purpose of fecundating the eggs of the 

 young queen during the remainder of the season. A very 

 few drones are to be found in a second swarm : in fact, we 

 had once a second swarm, in which not a single drone was 

 to be seen ; but this hive did not survive the winter, nor, as 

 far as we could ascertain, did the young queen ever lay an 

 egg in the hive. Were the drones aware of her sterility, 

 and therefore did not think it worth their while to follow 

 her ? 



