Notwithstanding the most persevering attention of Huber and of other ingenious aof the Queen is accomplished by her intercourse with the drone during a flight in the open atmosphere ; but modestly states that he never witnessed the act of copulation. On this last point I entirely coincide with him, and firmly believe that no man ever yet has been present to confirm the supposed fact; neither can any person deny the possibility --not to say--the probability of such an union. On the other hand, Mr. Huish is an advocate for the drones in another way, stating then to be the male Bees, and that they recundate--_not the Queen,_ but all the eggs of the Queen, produced by her, the year in which drones are brought into existence. But Mr. Huish has nowhere stated, in his treatise on Bees, what recundates those eggs of the Queen which are produced by her in the absence of all drones. It is well known that those eggs do well and come to perfection, long after the drones have ceased to exist in the hive. _Eggs are laid and natured into Bees when there is not one drone in the hive._ This, therefore, is an argument in favour of Mr. Huber's opinion --namely--that the Queen once impregnated remains so during her life,--and that, as the Queen lives some years, the drones are calledinto being to recundate the young Queens, brought into existence for purposes that will be noticed in the next chapter. Neither should we overlook the singular services of the short-lived drones in other circumstances of the colony; for most essential is their presence in the hive during the months of May, June, and July. In those months we behold the extraordinary rapidity with which the working Bees leave their hive in search of materials for their various works? So indefatigable are they in collecting from the flowers of the fields--i. e. from abroad, the various substances with which to enrich their commonwealth, that in the time of honey-dews, scarcely a mechanical labourer is left in the hive. Now, were it not for the drones--those large bodied Bees--whatwould become of the larvae then in existence? It would undoubtedly perish.* No sooner, however, is this busy season at an end, than the total destruction of the drones takes place; but not until the animal the last Bees that are annually brought into existence; therefore, they are not produced for the express purpose of broding the eggs from which the working Bees issue: nor is it reasonable to suppose that eighteen hundred or two thousand male Bees should be necessary for the impregnation of two or three young Queen-Bees. For what specific purpose or purposes Drone-Bees are annually produced, it is perhaps beyond the ken of mortal eyes to discover. This much, however, is known; and is perhaps "enough for man to know," -- drones are a constituent part of every good colony of Bees;--no stock is prosperous without them;--they make their appearance in the hive annually at, or just before the commencement of the main gathering of honey; at its conclusion they are quickly dispatched. Nevertheless they are in some way necessary during that particular season ; and, as they are not collectors of honey, nor of pollen, nor of materials of any kind,--as they are neither builders of comb, nor exuders of wax, _may they not be rectifiers of the honey_? may it not undergo some filtering, purifying process, previously to its being finally stored and sealed up for future use, for which process the drones alone are qualified? Virgil bestowed upon the poor, harmless drones an opprovious epithet." "_Ignavum_, fucos, pecus a presepibus arctent;" And from histime downward they have been stigmatized as _lazy_, _idle drones_; and the poetical expression has even passed into a proverb. As, however, the hive never fills so fast with honey as when the drones are inmates, and never fills at all without them, I am inclined to think that great injustice has been done to them; and that ignorance of the specific way in which the * Geor. lib. iv. v. 168.