Impregnation of the queen always takes place, as before stated, while on the wing, outside the hive, usually during the heat of warm sunshiny days. After mating, the drone organs adhere to the queen, and may be seen hanging to her for some hours. The copulatory act is fatal to the drones. By holding a drone in the hand, the ejection of the sex-organs is often produced, and always followed by immediate death. As the queen only meets a single drone, and that only once, it might be asked why nature was so improvident as to decree hundreds of drones to an apiary or colony, whereas a score would suffice as well. Nature takes cognizance of the importance of the queen, and as she goes forth amidst the myriad dangers of the outer world, it is safest and best that her stay abroad be not protracted; that the experience be not repeated, and especially, that her meeting a drone be _not delayed_. Hence the superabundance of drones--especially under natural conditions, isolated in forest homes, where ravenous birds are ever on the alert for insect game--is most wise and provident. Nature is never "penny wise and pound foolish." In our apiaries the need is wanting, and the condition, as it exists in nature, is not enforced. The fact that parthenogenesis prevails in the production of the drones, has led to the theory that from a pure queen, however mated, must ever come a pure drone. My own experience and observation, which I believe are those of all apiarists, has confirmed this theory. Yet, if the impure mating of our cows, horses, and fowls, renders the females of mixed blood ever afterward, as is believed and taught by many who would seem most competent to judge--though I must say I am somewhat skeptical in the matter--then we must look closely as to our bees, for certainly, if a mammal, and especially a fowl, is tainted by impure mating, then we may expect the same of insects. In fowls such influence, if it exists, must come simply from the presence in the female generative organs of the germ-cells, or spermatozoa, and in mammals, too, there is little more than this, for though they are viviparous, so that the union and contact of the offspring and mother seems very intimate, during fœtal development, yet there is no intermingling of the blood, for a membrane ever separates that of the mother from that of the fœtus, and only the nutritious and waste elements pass from one to the other. To claim that the mother is tainted through the circulation, is like claiming that the same result would follow her inhaling the breath of her progeny after birth. I can only say, that I believe this whole matter is still involved in doubt, and still needs more careful, scientific and prolonged observation. THE NEUTERS, OR WORKER-BEES.