16 ; 
than those of the working bees, are larger than those of the — 
drones. They have no brush at the end of their claws. ‘Th 
queens are longer than the drones. You can easily discove 
them by the shortness of their wings, which do not exten 
beyond the third ring, whereas the wings of the other bees, 
and more particularly those of the drones, extend beyond 
the extremity of the body. ‘The queen, on account of the 
shortness of her wings, cannot fly so easily as the working — 
bees; hence it is, that during her whole life, she seldom — 
makes use of them. In the interior of her body, the eggs 
are distributed in two ovaries. Each ovary is an assem- 
blage of vessels, which terminate at a common canal, and 
which are all filled with eggs at the time of laymg. = 
This is the result of the observations and reflections of 
Miraldi, Swammerdam, Réaumur, and Valmont de Bo- 
mare, concerning the mother bee; and the opinion of these 
celebrated men, ought to be sufficient authority to out- 
weigh the ridiculous opinions advanced by the modern 
would-be philosophers,—the Boses and Feburiers, who as- 
sert that the queen bee is continually gadding abroad, and 
coursing over the fields, courting adventures of gallantry 
with every drone she meets. 
I do not agree in opinion with these same moderns, (the 
Boses and Féburiers,) that the old queen is every year ex 
‘pelled the hive, by the colony itself, over which a young 
queen assumes the authority. These gentlemen are only 
cabinet, or green carpet philosophers. Had they ever stood 
by and examined a swarm coming out of a hive, they might 
have observed a young queen, scarcely divested of her 
nymphal robe, trying her wings, before risking her first 
- flight. Sometimes obliged to return into the hive, for want 
of strength to take her departures; and that she is always 
obliged to stop, and rest on some tree, or bush, near the 
mother hive. ‘This would not be the case, if the old queen. 
had been driven out with the swarm. : i 
It is not uncommon, in the country, to see a peasant 
seize a young queen, as she issues from an old hive, and 
put her into the new hive prepared for her, where the whole 
new swarm will settle around her. If she were an old 
queen, she would be more active and bold, and elude the 
grasp of the hand stretched out to arrest her. a 
_ The queen, which is longer than the common bee, an 
not quite so large as the drone, is endowed with an asto 
SO 
a 
3: | 
