The tbree kinds of bees inhabiting a hive are all of . different size and appearance, and may easily be re cognised. The common bees and males are familiar to everyone ; the latter being much larger, and of duller flight. But the queen resembles neither in structure; she is about eight lines and a half in length, while the males are seven, and the workers six. Her abdomen is greatly longer in proportion, and increases. much when filled with eggs ; her wings are so short as scarcely to reach past the third ring, and her co lour tends to a deeper yellow. Queens, and also males, are occasionally seen of smaller size than usual ; which naturalists have supposed is owing to accidental cir cumstances. It is not yet known, however, whether all the bees preserved in hives, in different countries, are exactly of the same species; or, whether there are varieties preserving their peculiar characteristics of size and colour.
Long ago it was ascertained, that the welfare of the queen is indispensible to the welfare of the hive, and that ally accident befalling her is fatal to the whole colony. As she is the parent of the hive, it is from her alone that a complete swarm, composed of queens, drones, and workers, can proceed ; and without these different members of the community, it cannot either lay up stores, or be preserved in existence. That bees are propagated by means of eggs, which are hatched into worms, could not be unknown from times of the most remote antiquity ; but no point in the natural history of animals has been more keenly contested, than their precise mode of generation. It was concluded, from finding males and females toge ther in the same hive, that their sexual union gave birth to the young ; yet no one had beheld their con course. Those provided-with the means best adapt ed for observation, could only assert, that some. thing like an indistinct and transient junction had taken place before them. Others, again, with all the assiduity, care, and attention they were able to com mand, could see nothing of the kind ; and thence in ferred, that the queen was a real hermaphrodite, which in itself the generative powers of both sexes combined. A third class, where we are surprised the name of Swammerdam should appear, ascribed the impregnation of the queen to a certain aura emanating from the bodies of the males, which must necessarily be numerous, in order that it may have sufficient power ; and a few observers conceived, that external fecundation of the eggs took place af ter being deposited in the cell, in the same way as the generation of frogs and fishes is effected. But, on the other hand, young were found in hives provided with queens, though entirely destitute of males. They were seen in spring long before males begin to exist, and in winter after the whole are destroyed ; and an experiment. by Hattorf evinced the aversion of queens to drones, rather than an affection for them. He took two virgin queens from their cells, and con fined each, along with. two drones taken from the same hive, under a glass vessel. One of the drones having approached a queen, was seized by her, and killed on the spot and the other did exactly the like .with one of her companions ; the two remaining drones escaped.. This experiment, on frequent repe tition, presented similar results ; and the variety of devices to ascertain the fact were attended with con sequences which served still more and more to per plex the Observer. At length, however, the truth seems to be disclosed, and we shall briefly advert to the methods adopted for the purpose of discovering it.
M. Huber of Geneva, one of the most intelligent authors who have written on this subject, finding the experiments of all former naturalists unsatisfactory, removed the whole reigning females from a number of hiVes, and substituted for each a queen taken at the moment she came to maturity. He then divided the
hives into two classes ; and having removed all the drones from those of the first class, he ad ipted a -glass tube to the entrance, so narrow that no drone could pass, but large enough to admit common bees. The whole drones were allowed to remain in the hives of the second class, and more were even introduced. A glass tithe, also, too small for their exit, though of sufficient -capacity. for common bees, was likewise adapted to the entrance of the hives. This experi ment was carefully made ; and, to the author's great surprise, all the queens remained sterile ; thus proving, that a female confined to her hive would continue barren while amidst a seraglio of males.
. The result of successive experiments, diversified in every possible manner, and made with much skill and indefatigable labour, proved, that the generation of -bees is effected by the union of the sexes, as in most other specie's of insects, and the larger terrestrial ani mals. But it is never in the interior of the hive that it takes place. The queen, to accomplish it, must issue forth from her dwelling—the only occasion, ex cept one, on which she leaves it ; and although her junction with the drone Ines not yet been witnessed by human eyes, it is supposed to happen high in the air. In illustratin.5 the generation of bees, the au thor whom we have already named concluded, that if queens were obliged to go out for impregnation, it would be at the warmest time of the day, as the males then leave the hive. On the 29th of June, a hive, containing a virgin queen five days old, was made the -subject of observation. The sun had shone from his rising ; the air was very warm ; and, at eleven in the forenoon, the males began to leave the neighbouring hives. The entrance of the one containing the queen was then enlarged, and the bees entering and depart ing narrowly observed. The males appeared, and -immediately took flight ; and soon afterwards the young queen caine to the entrance. Before quitting the board, she traversed it, and brushed her belly with her hind legs, during which she received no at tention either from the males or workers. Taking flight, she again approached the hive as if to examine the place of her departure, that she might recognise it. Next, describing circles ten or twelve feet above the surface of the earth, she rapidly rose in the and was soon out of sight. The observer and au as sistant hastened to contract the entrance of the hive, and in seven minutes the young queen returned. No -external marks of fecundation being visible, she was allowed to enter the hive. In a quarter of an hour she came to the entrance, and brushing herself as•be fore, took flight. Returning to examine the hive, she departed, rising so high that the observers soon lost -sight of her. Twenty-seven minutes elapsed before her second excursion terminated ; but now she was in a very different condition from that in which she ap peared after the first ; for she exhibited the most un equivocal evidence of sexual union, by bringing along with her the genital organs of the male by which she had been impregnated.—And here a wonderful devia tion from the ordinary laws of nature ensues ; the ..male loses his organs in copulation, and thus sacrifices his own life in perpetuating his race. In two days the belly of the queen was swollen ; and, on investiga tion, she proved to have laid nearly an hundred eggs in the workers' cells. For some reason, which is un known to us, the sexual union cannot be accomplish ed in the hive ; and the object of the queen's depar ture being once fulfilled, she never again leaves it un less to conduct a swarm.