36 
TOE HIVE AND HONET-BEK. 
present (Plate XVIII.), toniy readers. The sm.all globu¬ 
lar sac {D), coininunicjiting with the oviduct (^), which 
he thought secreted a fluid for sticking the eggs to the 
base of the cells, is the seminal reservoir, or sperniatheca. 
Any one who will carefully dissect a queen-bee, m.ay see 
this sac, even with the naked eye. 
It will be seen that the ovaries (G .and JT) are double, 
each consisting of an amazing number of ducts* filled 
with eggs, which gradually increase in size.f 
Huber, while expeiamenting to ascertain how the queen 
w.as fecundated, confined some young ones to their hives 
by contracting the entrances, so that they were more than 
three weeks old before they could go in seai-ch of the 
drones. To his am.azement, the queens whose impregna¬ 
tion was thus retarded never laid any eggs but such as 
produced drones! 
He tried this experiment repeatedly, but .always with 
the same result. Bee-keepers, even from the time of 
Aristotle, had observed that all the brood in a hive were 
occasionally drones. Before- attempting to e.xplain this 
astonishing fact, I must call the attention of the reader to 
another of the mysteries of the bee-hive. 
It has .already been st.ated, that the workers ai’e proved 
by dissection to be females which under ordinary cir¬ 
cumstances are barren. Occasionally, some of them 
appear to be sufficiently developed to be capable of Laying 
eggs ; but these eggs, like those of queens whose impreg¬ 
nation has been retarded, always produce drones! Some- 
• Tlio ducts Id this cut are represented as more numerous than those in Swam¬ 
merdam’s drawing. 
f Since the first edition of this work was Issued, I have ascertained that Posel 
(page 54) describes the oviduct of the queen, the spcrmatheca and its contents, 
and the use of Uio latter in imiu ognating the passing egg. His work was published 
at Munich, In 1784. It seems also from his work (page 30), that before the inves¬ 
tigations of Huber, Jansha, tlio boe-keoper royal of Maria Tlioresii, bad discovorcsd 
the fact that the young queens leave their hive in search of the drones. 
