I have frequently cut off one antennae to recognise a queen the more easily, and it was not prejudicial to her either in fecundity or instinct nor did it affect the attention paid to her by the bees. It is true, that as one still remained, the mutilation was imperfect; and the experiment decided nothing. But amputation of both antennae produced most singular effects. On the fifth of September, I cut both off a queen that laid the eggs of males only, and put her into the hive immediately after the operation. From this moment there was a great alteration in her conduct. She traversed the combs with extraordinary vivacity. Scarcely had the workers time to separate and recede before her; she dropped her eggs, without attending to deposit them in any cell. The hive not being very populous, part was without comb. Hither she seemed particularly earnest to repair, and long remained motionless. She appeared to avoid the bees; however, several workers followed her into this solitude, and treated her with the most evident respect. She seldom required honey from them, but, when that occurred, directed her trunk with an uncertain kind of feeling, sometimes on the head and sometimes on the limbs of the workers, and if it did reach their mouths, it was by chance. At other times she returned upon the combs, then quitted them to traverse the glass sides of the hive: and always dropped eggs during her various motions. Sometimes she appeared tormented with the desire of leaving her habitation. She rushed towards the opening, and entered the glass tube adapted there; but the external orific being too small, after fruitless exertion, she returned. Notwithstanding these symptoms of delirium, the bees did not cease to render her the same attention as they ever pay to their queens, but this one received it with indifference. All that I describe appeared to me the consequence of amputating the antennae. However, her organization having already suffered from retarded fecundation, and as I had observed her instinct in some degree impaired, both causes might possibly concur in producing the same effect. To distinguish properly what belonged to the privation of the antennae, a repetition of the experiment was necessary, in a queen otherwise well organised, and capable of laying both kinds of eggs.