In terminating the confutation of Mr Debraw's opinion, I have only to explain what led him into error; and that was, his using queens whose history he was unacquainted with from their origin. When he observed the eggs produced by a queen, confined along with males, were fertile, he thence concluded that they had been bedewed by the prolific fluid in the cells: but to render his conclusion just, he should first have ascertained that the female never had copulated, and this he neglected. The truth is, that, without knowing it, he had used, in his experiments, a queen after she had commerce with the male. Had he taken a virgin queen the moment she came from the royal cell, and confined her along with drones in his vessels, the result would have been opposite; for, even amidst a seraglio of males, this young queen would never have laid, as I shall afterwards prove. The Lusatian observers, and M. Hattorf in particular, thought the queen was fecundated by herself, without concourse with the males. I shall here give an abstract of the experiment on which that opinion is founded.{D} M. Hattorf took a queen whose virginity he could not doubt. He excluded all the males both of the large and small species, and, in several days, he found both eggs and worms. He asserts that there were no drones in the hive, during the course of the experiment; but although they were absent, the queen laid eggs, from which came worms: whence he considers she is impregnated by herself. Reflecting on this experiment, I do not find it sufficiently accurate. Males pass with great facility from hive to hive; and M. Hattorf took no precaution that none was introduced into his. He says, indeed, there was no male, but is silent respecting the means he adopted to prove the fact. Though he might be satisfied of no large drone being there, still a small one might have escaped his vigilance, and fecundated the queen. With a view to clear up the doubt, I resolved to repeat his experiment, in the manner described, and without greater care or precaution. I put a virgin queen into a hive, from which all the males were excluded, but the bees left at perfect liberty. For several days I visited the hive, and found new hatched worms in it. Here then is the same result as M. Hattorf obtained? But before deducing the same consequence from it, we had to ascertain beyond dispute that no male had entered the hive. Thus, it was necessary to immerse the bees, and examine each separately. By this operation, we actually found four small males. Therefore, to render the experiment decisive, not only was it requisite to remove all the drones, but also, by some infallible method, to prevent any from being introduced, which the German naturalist had neglected.