Account of the Drone Bee: 7% 
they afked me,—What then is the ufe of the 
“ drone ?’—~In anfwer to this, I candidly ac- 
knowledged that I could not tell, as any con- 
jeCture, that 1 could form refpedting their ufe, 
appeared to be attended with infurmountable 
objections. We all agreed, however, that they 
certainly muft be of fome ufé, as Nature, or, 
more properly {peaking, the Gop of Nature, 
does nothing in vain, 
- One of the gentlemen faid, that, perhaps 
bees might be like fome other infects, whofe 
males were not neceflary in every act of ge- 
neration; and that, perhaps, although a Queen 
bee, who had never feen a drone, could lay an 
ege which would produce a Queen, and that 
Queen again.do the fame, and thus the pro- 
duction of Queens and bees be continued with 
equal fuccefs, for perhaps fix, eight, or ten ge« 
nerations ; yet it might perhaps turn out, that 
thefe Queens would gradually become more 
and “more unfruitful, and at laft grow alto- 
gether barren, unlefs they fhould cohabit with. 
the drones: The other gentleman, however, 
was of opinion, that if one Queen was fruit. 
ful without the agency of the drones, every 
other one would be fo likewife, to the end of 
the world. 
K.3 Theté 
