been the cause of
vitiation. He justly felicitated himself on discovering a method to
prevent the destruction of hives in this situation, which was simple,
for it consisted in removing the queen that laid the eggs of males only,
and substituting one for her whose ovaries were not impaired. But to
make the substitution effectual, it was necessary to procure queens at
pleasure; a secret reserved for M. Schirach, and of which I shall speak
in the following letter. You observe that the whole experiments of the
German naturalist tended to the preservation of the hives whose queens
laid none except male eggs; and that he did not attempt to discover the
cause of the vice evident in their ovaries.

M. de Reaumur also says a few words, somewhere, of a hive containing
many more drones than workers, but advances no conjectures on the cause.
However, he adds, as a remarkable circumstance, that the males were
tolerated in this hive until the subsequent spring. It is true that bees
governed by a queen laying only male eggs, or by a virgin queen,
preserve their drones several months after they have been massacred in
other hives. I can ascribe no reason for it, but it is a fact I have
several times witnessed during my long course of observations on
retarded impregnation. In general it has appeared that while the queen
lays male eggs, bees do not massacre the males already perfect in the
hive. PREGNY, _21. August 1791_.

FOOTNOTES:

{G} The experiments suggested in this paragraph, recall a singular
reflection of M. de Reaumur. Where treating of oviparous flies, he says,
it would not be impossible for a hen to produce a living chicken, if,
after fecundation, the eggs she should first lay could by any means be
retained twenty-one days in the oviducts. _Mem. sur. les Insect. tom. 4.
mem. 10._

LETTER IV.

_ON M. SCHIRACH'S DISCOVERY._

When you found it necessary, Sir, in the new edition of your works, to
give an account of M. Schirach's beautiful experiments on the conversion
of common worms into royal ones, you invited naturalists to repeat them.
Indeed such an important discovery required the confirmation of several
testimonies. For this reason, I hasten to inform you that all my
researches establish the reality of the discovery. During ten years
that I have studied bees, I have repeated M. Schirach's experiment so
often, and with such uniform success, that I can no longer have the
least doubt on the subject. Therefor