I have frequently testified my admiration of M. de Reaumur's observations on bees. I feel a sensible pleasure in acknowledging that if I have made any progress in the art of observation, I am indebted for it to profound study of the works of this naturalist. In general his authority has such weight, that I can scarcely trust my own experiments when the results are different from his. Likewise, on finding myself in opposition to the _historian of bees_, I repeat my experiments. I vary the mode of conducting them; I examine with the utmost caution all the circumstances that might mislead me, and never are my labours interrupted before acquiring the moral certainty of avoiding error. With the aid of these precautions, I have discovered the justice of M. de Reaumur's suggestions, and I have a thousand times seen, if certain experiments seemed to combat them, it was from incorrectness of execution. Yet I must except some facts where my results have constantly been different from his. Those respecting the reception of a stranger queen substituted for the natural one, are of the number. If, after removing the natural queen, a stranger is immediately substituted, the usurper is ill received. I never could succeed in making them adopt her, but by allowing an interval of twenty or twenty-four hours to elapse. Then they seemed to have forgot their own queen; and respectfully received any female put in her place. M. de Reaumur, on the contrary, asserts, that should the original queen be removed, and another presented, this new one will be perfectly well received from the beginning. As evidence of this assertion, he gives the detail of an experiment which must be read in his work, for I shall here give only an extract of it{L}. He induced four or five hundred bees to leave their native hive and enter a glass box, containing a small piece of comb towards the top. At first they were in great agitation; and, to pacify or console them, he presented a new queen. From this moment, the tumult ceased, and the stranger queen was received with all respect.