48 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



between the queens and the drones; and he even 

 suspected that it proved fatal to the latter. Swam- 

 merdam gives, in his "Researches in Entomology," 

 during the latter part of the seventeenth century, a 

 minute drawing of the ovaries of the queen, greatly 

 magnified, which shows a small bag or sac lying in 

 the vagina or common oviduct, very similar to that 

 found by Mr. Hunter in the silk moth. I think it 

 reasonable to suppose that this sac is the receptacle 

 for the male sperm, which serves to fertilize all the 

 eggs which the queen may produce for life. 



Thus far, I believe this theory to be correct ; but 

 the process by which this is brought in contact and 

 incorporated with the rudiments of the eggs as pro- 

 duced in the ovaries of the queen, is yet, I apprehend, 

 considerably in the dark. 



Before entering upon this point, I will relate what 

 occurred under my own observation, in regard to the 

 impregnation of the queen. On the 25th of May, 

 1859, I observed a young queen (on the third day 

 after she emerged from her cell,) leave the hive about 

 half past twelve o'clock; the drones were abroad in 

 advance of her, buzzing around in every direction 

 through the air. I watched carefully for her return, 

 contracting the entrance a little to prevent her pass- 

 ing directly in. In about twenty-five minutes she 

 returned, with the unmistakable marks of coition ; 

 her appearance was similar to that presented by a 

 worker bee when pressed between the thumb and 

 fingers, until the intestines, or the whitish substance 

 which surrounds and is connected with the sting, pro- 



