138 APPEARANCE OP THE DRONES. 



paragraph, there is scarcely a single sentence, that is not 

 surcharged with error: for does Mr. Duncan mean to affirm, 

 that the queen does not lay any drone eggs until the begin- 

 ning or end of May ?— if so, he asserts what is directly at 

 variance with all experience ; for, according to that principle, 

 the drones would not make their appearance until the begin- 

 ning or end of June, whereas we generally look for them 

 about the close of April *. As to the limitation of the laying 

 of drone eggs by the queen to thirty days, it is decidedly 

 erroneous ; for the queen commences to lay drone eggs at the 

 close of January, or the beginning of February, and ceases 

 about June or July. But how does this statement of Mr. 

 Duncan agree with that of his great authority, Huber, who 

 says that the queen will lay male eggs for eleven consecutive 

 months ?— either Mr. Duncan or Mr. Huber must be in the 

 wrong ; but we will settle that question at once, by declaring 

 that both of them are in the wrong : the queen has not any 

 eggs in her ovarium from August or September to January; 

 and we will venture to affirm, in despite of the authority of 

 Huber, that no apiarian ever knew the queen bee to lay an 

 egg in the month of November. There is another circum- 

 stance in which we cannot coincide with Mr. Duncan, 

 wherein he says the bees begin to form large cells, that is, 

 drone cells, the beginning or middle of May. Now did Mr. 

 Duncan ever examine the interior of a hive, and in that 

 examination, did he not discover drone cells in the middle of 

 the combs, and which were constructed when the combs 

 were originally made ? According, however, to Mr. Duncan's 

 showing, the drone cells are not made until the queen be 

 prepared to deposit her eggs in them ; the direct contrary 



* In corroboration of this statement, it may be stated, that a hive belong- 

 ing to Mr. Jameson of Hackney swarmed this year 1841, at the end of April ; 

 consequently, as there never yet was a swarm without drones, the eggs from 

 which originated the drones belonging to Mr. Jameson's hive, must have 

 been laid in the month of March. A hive that has not any drones in it in 

 the month of May, is not worth preserving, nor will it survive the winter. 



