My readers will be surprised that queens whose fecundation has been retarded, and whose fecundity is so useless to bees, should be so well treated and become as dear to them as females laying both kinds of eggs. But I remember to have observed a fact more astonishing still. I have seen workers bestow every attention on a queen though sterile; and after her death treat her dead body as they had treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate body to the most fertile queens I had offered them. This sentiment, which assumes the appearance of so lively an affection, is probably the effect of some agreeable sensation communicated to bees by their queen, independent of fertility. Those laying only the eggs of males probably excite the same sensation in the workers. I now recollect that the celebrated Swammerdam somewhere observes, that when a queen is blind, sterile, or mutilated, she ceases to lay, and the workers of her hive no longer labour or make any collections, as if aware that it was now useless to work. He cites no experiment that led him to the discovery. Those made by myself have afforded some very singular results. I frequently amputated the four wings of queens; and not only did they continue laying, but the same confederation of them was testified by the workers as before. Therefore, Swammerdam has no foundation for asserting, that mutilated queens cease to lay. Indeed, from his ignorance of fecundation taking place without the hives, it is possible he cut the wings off virgin queens, and they, becoming incapable of flight, remained sterile from inability to seek the males in the air. Thus, amputation of the wings does not produce sterility in queens. * * * * *