144 HYPOTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF 



sex. Amongst bees, as amongst several other insect tribes, there 

 is in each community but one true female, the queen bee, the 

 workers being false females or neuters ; that is to say, sex is 

 not carried on in them beyond that early point where no 

 special determination is to be seen, the result being, as might 

 be expected, sterility. The preparatory states of the queen 

 bee occupy sixteen days ; those of the neuters, twenty ; and 

 those of males, twenty-four. Now, it is a fact, settled by 

 innumerable observations and experiments, that the bees can 

 so modify a larva, which otherwise would result in a worker, 

 that, when the perfect insect emerges from the pupa, it is 

 found to be a queen or true female. For this purpose they 

 enlarge its cell, make a pyramidal hollow to allow of its as- 

 suming a vertical instead of a horizontal position, keep it 

 warmer than other larvae are kept, and feed it with a peculiar 

 kind of food. From these simple circumstances, leading to a 

 shortening of the embryotic condition, results a creature dif- 

 ferent in form, and also in dispositions, from what would have 

 otherwise been produced. Some of the organs possessed by 

 the worker are here wanting. We have a creature " destined 

 to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be incited 

 to vengeance, and to pass her time without labour," instead of 

 one " zealous for the good of the community, a defender of the 

 public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of 

 sexual appetite and the pains of parturition ; laborious, in- 

 dustrious, patient, ingenious, skilful ; incessantly engaged in 

 the nurture of the young, in collecting honey and pollen, in 

 elaborating wax, in constructing cells and the like ! paying 

 the most respectful and assiduous attention to objects which, 

 had its ovaries been developed, it would have hated and pur- 

 sued with the most vindictive fury till it had destroyed them I" 1 

 It may be observed that there is, from the period of oviposi- 

 tion, a destined distinction between the sexes of the young 

 bees. The queen lays the whole of the eggs which are de- 

 signed to become workers, before she begins to lay those which 

 become males. But the condition of her reproductive system 

 evidently governs the matter of sex, for it is remarked that 

 when her impregnation is delayed beyond the twenty-eighth 

 day of her entire existence, she lays only eggs which become 

 males. 



We have here, it will be admitted, a most remarkable illus- 



1 Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology. 



