= 
tT 
nishing fecundity, which is not equalled by any insect or 
animal, except some kinds of fish. ‘The queen continues to 
lay as long as she can find places to deposite her eggs, for 
each requires a separate cell. These eggs are not fecun- 
dated till after they are laid: and this process is the same 
as that by which the roe of the female fish is impregnated 
_ by the male. It is not known how far the fecundity of the 
queen bee could extend, provided the working bees could 
furnish a sufficient number of cells, because she immediate- 
ly lays as soon as she finds cells prepared to receive her 
egos. 
This phenomenon is very perceivable in the pyramidal 
hive, which produces swarms four or five times stronger 
than the simple hive; because there are an infinitely greater 
number of disposable cells for the queen to layin. The 
multitude of working bees in the pyramidal hives, enables. 
them soon to increase the extent of their combs, and the 
number of cells, and the deposite of the queen is more or 
less considerable in proportion to that number. 
The queen is a stranger to coition. She is at once a vir- 
gin and a mother, notwithstanding the absurdities of some 
moderns, which it is not necessary to confute. 
Every body knows, that the queen mother never leaves 
her family, nor goes out of the hive. In the centre of the © 
cells, near the queen mother, some eggs are deposited, 
which produce new queens, destined to govern new swarms, 
or to succeed the old queen when she has finished her 
career. ‘These young queens, as well as the old, are nou- 
rished by.the family so long as they remain in the hive. 
The combats between the young queens and the old, men- 
tioned by some writers never take place. The young pa- 
tiently wait the time of their departure without ambition, 
_ and the old one views them without jealousy. Besides, the 
young queens remain entirely passive beside the mother 
queen, to whom alone belongs, during her life, the com- 
mand of her empire. 
In fact, the Abbe Rosier, and every man well informed 
in the culture of bees, say that young queens never lay in 
the domicile of their. birth, during the life of the mother 
queen. They wait the departure of swarms, of which they 
take the command, and go to found some new éstablish- _ 
ment out of the dominion of the queen mother. Those who 
are so unfortunate as not to be chosen to lead a swarm, 
are at the end of summer massacred, in the same manner, 
B2 
