101 
‘it leaves in its cell. It immediately, of itself, bursts the — 
__waxen pellicle, and joins the family, whom it knows, and by _ 
whom it is known. It makes essay, is on the wing, andin 
the fields. ‘This is the manner in which the author of na- 
ture forms the bee. While this insect is in the cradle, it — 
requires no kind of nourishment. §/ on 
But Iam not satisfied by reporting this process of na- 
ture. I will illustrate it by an experiment, the execution _ 
of which is so easy, that the least informed of our country 
labourers can conceive and put in practice himself. ac 
__ After the massacre of the drones, there remains in the — 
hive nothing but the queen, the neuters, and the cowvain, _ 
which is to hatch on the return of spring. ; ' 
_ In this situation, let the bees be removed by some kind 
of transvasement into an empty hive, without combs, or 
- couvain. Let them be plentifully nourished with honey. 
Phis new hive will very soon be filled with combs, the cells 
which, the queen mother will supply with eggs, as fast as 
hey are made. 
When spring arrives, drones will be hatched in all the 
ther hives, but none in this. ‘The other hives will produce 
warms, but this will produce none. Besides, this hive, 
which was strong in early spring, every day grows weaker; 
because it has no productive couvain to repair its daily loss. 
t will soon come to its end, for want of working bees, as 
well interior as éxterior. OU GRRL inc a 
They may be left to perish, and afterwards re-estab- 
shed.—But first let the cells be examined. The queen 
has deposited eggs in all the cells, but they are all open— 
not one of them is sealed with the pellicle of wax, which 
he bees place over those cells, where the couvain has been 
fecundated, because it is in their instinct, to suspend the 
application of the pellicle, till the act of fecundation has 
been performed. RR 
Now this being the law of nature, it is evident that the 
 queen’s eggs must be fecundated by the drones, before they 
are fit for procreation. : i 
For this work of procreation, among the bees, there is no 
intercourse between the queen and drones. 
Bees never place a pellicle of wax on a cell where the 
" queen has deposited an egg, until the egg has been fecun- 
dated ; and in this, as in all their other operations, their 
‘instinct never mistakes. 
se. 
