Mr. Debra w’s Difeovaries 
opinion, that the queen-bee of a hive lays eggs which 
produce young ones, without having any communication 
with the drones. For what purpofe fhould wife nature then 
have furnifhed the drones with that large quantity of 
feminal liquor? To what ufe fo large an apparatus of fe- 
cundating organs, fo well defcribed by Reaumur and 
MARALDI? 
But I beg leave to remark, that thofe gentlemen fecm to 
have drawn too hafty conclufions from their experiments, 
in rejecting the drones as bearing no lhare in the propaga- 
tion of thofe infedls. Their obfervations, that hives are 
peopled at a time of the year when there are no drones 
in being, is no ways conclufive; as it is evident, that they 
had feen none but drones of a large lize, their lilence on 
the difference in the fize of them juftifying my remark. 
But to refume the narrative of my experiments : I had 
watched my glafs-hivesw with indefatigable attention 
from the moment the bees, among which I had taken care 
to leave a large number of drones, were put into them, 
to the time of the queen laying her eggs, which gene- 
rally happens the fourth or fifth day. I obferved the 
firft or fecond day (always before the third) from the 
time the eggs are placed in the cells, that a great number 
(b ) Glafs- hives were ufed in preference to boxes, for a purpofe too obvious to 
need explaining. 
©f 
