RAISING AND INTRODUCTION ■ OF QUEENS. 323 
US have entertained, in reference to artificial fertilisa- 
tion, t.e., the accouplement of the queen by mechanical 
means, have not, at present, so far as I am aware, 
been realised, while the prospect has quite lost the 
hopeful character it at one time possessed. Professor 
McLain, in a very appreciative private letter to myself, 
detailed his experiments of some, of which I condense 
his account. Having hatched a queen from a cell in 
the charge of bees in confinement, he found orgasm 
advanced on the sixth day. The next evening, five 
or six drones were placed in a glass jar, when 
the queen, dropped amongst them, commenced an 
“ amorous dalliance,” indicating that the time for 
operating had arrived. A drone was removed without 
alarming him, and sprayed with chloroform, his head 
snipped off and he pinned back downwards, his 
abdomen opened, and the testes and seminal sac 
removed. The queen was then held head and back 
downwards, by gently grasping the thorax between 
the thumb and forefinger, and upon her open vulva 
were squeezed the contents of the seminal vessels. 
Three drones were employed, and the queen, by a set 
of muscular movements, seemed to receive the material 
even with eagerness. The queen, after wing-clipping, 
was returned, and the bees liberated. Careful exami- 
nation had shown that there were no drones in the 
hive, so that the improbable suggestion that she had 
been fecundated in confinement is inadmissible. In- 
deed, at this time (October) all drones, normally, had 
disappeared, the weather being both cold and damp. 
Twelve hours later, the queen possessed the appear- 
ance and action of a fertile mother. Her abdomen 
