76. TREATISE ON THE 
not the fact confirmed by numerous exper!- 
ments. If impregnation be delayed longer 
than twenty days from the queen’s birth, the 
‘consequence is that none but male eggs are 
laid, even during the whole of the queen’s 
life. This phenomenon has baffled every at- 
tempt to explain its cause. ‘There are mys- 
teries in the operations of nature, both in 
reference to the rational and irrational crea- 
tion, which will, probably, for ever remain 
inscrutable to man. In the natural state of 
things, that is, when fecundation has not been 
postponed, the queen lays the eggs of work- 
ers in forty-six hours after her union with 
the male, and continues for the subsequent 
eleven months to produce these alone ; and 
it is only after this period that a considerable 
laying of the eggs. of drones commences. 
Huber asserts that before a queen com- 
mences her great laying of male eggs, she 
must be eleven months old. But he ac- 
knowledges that a queen, hatched in spring,, 
will perhaps lay fifty or sixty eggs of drones 
in the whole, during the course of the ensu- 
