njectures on this singular fact; the
more I reflected on it, the more did it seem inexplicable. At length, by
attentively meditating on the circumstances of the experiment it
appeared there were two principles, the influence of which I should
first of all endeavour to appreciate separately. On the one hand, this
queen had suffered long confinement; on the other, her fecundation had
been extremely retarded. You know, Sir, that queens generally receive
the males about the fifth or sixth day, and this queen had not copulated
until the thirty-sixth. Little weight could be given to the supposition,
that the peculiarity could be occasioned by confinement. Queens, in the
natural state, leave their hives only once to seek the males. All the
rest of their life they remain voluntary prisoners. Thus, it was
improbable that captivity could produce the effect I wished to explain.
At the same time, as it was essential to neglect nothing in a subject so
new, I wished to ascertain whether it was owing to the length of
confinement, or to retarded fecundation.

Investigating this was no easy matter. To discover whether captivity,
and not retarded fecundation, vitiated the ovaries, it was necessary to
allow a female to receive the approaches of a male, and also to keep her
imprisoned. Now this could not be, for bees never copulate in hives. On
the same account, it was impossible to retard the copulation of a queen
without keeping her in confinement. I was long embarrassed by the
difficulty. At length, I contrived an apparatus, which, though
imperfect, nearly fulfilled my purpose.

I put a queen, at the moment of her last metamorphosis, into a hive well
stored, and sufficiently provided with workers and males; the entrance
was contracted so as to prevent her exit, but allowed free passage to
the workers. I also made another opening for the queen, and adapted a
glass tube to it, communicating with a cubical glass box eight feet
high. Hither the queen could at all times come and fly about, enjoying a
purer air than was to be found within the hive; but she could not be
fecundated; for though the males flew about within the same bounds, the
space was too limited to admit of any union between them. By the
experiments related in my first letter, copulation takes place high in
the air only: therefore, in this apparatus, I found the advantage of
retarding fecundation, while the liberty the queen now had, did not
render her situation too remote fr