APIS. 
323 
or to the impulse of emigration accompanied with a 
host of adherents. She never leaves the hive when 
once her duties have fully commenced, for by distinc¬ 
tion of structure she is rendered incompetent to execute 
any of the labours that devolve upon the workers; 
her tongue is formed only to lap nutriment; she has no 
cysts for the secretion of wax, she is without the honey- 
bag for conveying that liquid home, and her posterior 
shanks are convex externally, and thus deficient in the 
concave basket for carrying home the stores of pollen 
or propolis, whilst their plantse are without the little 
earlet at the top externally, or the close dense brush 
arranged in rows within, which aid these workers in their 
many manipulations. Her wings are too short to con¬ 
vey her ponderous body through the air, and her sting 
becomes stronger by being curved. Thus she is exone¬ 
rated from labour by the incapacity of her structure to 
execute it, although her duties are quite as incessant and 
as arduous, being indispensable to the perpetuation of 
the species. 
Her consort, the duone, is the male of the hive, and 
although the queen is monandrous or single-spoused, 
and although the hive during the season rarely throws 
off more than three swarms, usually restricted to the 
accompaniment of a single queen, and thus but three 
males are absolutely required, nature is so provident of 
the great design of perpetuation, that to provide against 
the possibility of its frustration, the hive usually pro¬ 
duces about a thousand drones. A peculiarity in the 
structure of the drone which facilitates his discoverv of 
V 
the virgin queen when she issues from the hive on the 
bridal excursion, which she makes preliminary to her 
heading a swarm of emigrants, or assuming monarchy 
y 2 
