462 SUMMAEY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



laying workers showed no trace of spermatozoa, and the possibility of 

 insemination must be discarded. 



A hive with a strong nucleus of bees was twice thoroughly inspected 

 by Jack and found to be queenless ; there was systematic egg- 

 laying on the part of the workers. In many cases several eggs were 

 laid in a cell. The eggs developed into workers, even when the eggs 

 had been laid in drone cells. Later on drones developed from capped 

 cells. PVom another queenless hive numerous workers and several 

 queens were reared. The possibility of the eggs having been brought 

 in from outside was excluded. The experiments detailed seem straight- 

 forward and careful, and it looks as if Onions had proved his case : 

 that the eggs of laying workers of the Cape variety of the honey bee 

 produce mainly workers, and that they develop into queens as readily 

 as the fertilized eggs of queen-bees. 



Sex in Bees.* — Bourgeois criticizes the theory of Dzierzon that the 

 queen lays facultatively fertilized eggs and unfertilized eggs, the former 

 developing into queens or workers, the latter into drones. He main- 

 tains, somewhat vaguely, that the theory is not in harmony with the 

 experience of bee-keepers, and that it is improbable on general grounds 

 that the queen-bee should have this power of sex-control. 



A virgin queen lays eggs " with a single sexual particle" ; a young 

 queen normally inseminated lays eggs " with two sexual particles." The 

 workers determine what will result from the development of the eggs. 



Three sets of facts are submitted which lead Bourgeois to conclude 

 that the control of sex rests with the young nursing bees. It is believed 

 that they can operate upon a fertilized ovum which should normally 

 develop into a female, and suppress one of the " sexual particles " so that 

 the egg develops into a drone. 



0. Morgenthaler f calls attention to the theory of F. Dickel that a 

 normal inseminated queen lays only fertihzed eggs, and that the workers 

 determine the sex by a treatment with secretions. They treat eggs laid 

 in drone-cells with a " male secretion," and eggs laid in worker-cells with 

 a " female secretion." But there is no evidence of two kinds of drones 

 — those developing from the eggs laid by a virgin queen, and those 

 developing from fertilized ova which the workers have treated. Nor do 

 the early stages in the development of drones show any trace of the 

 presence of a spermatozoon. 



The theory of Bourgeois is also that the inseminated queen lays only 

 fertilized eggs, but that the workers are able to suppress one of the 

 " sexual particles " in the egg. They are able to bring about a de- 

 fecundation of the fertilized egg. This implies a unique phenomenon 

 among insects, but it is supported also by Goldi, who suggests that the 

 workers can block the micropyle of an egg, or can by a secretion kill the 

 spermatozoon. Morgenthaler suggests that careful observation should 

 be made as to the visit of a worker to a drone-cell after the queen has 

 laid an egg there. 



* Bull. Soc.Romande d' Apiculture, xiii. (1916) pp. 102-5. 

 t Bull. Soc. Romande d'Apiculture, xiv. (1917) pp. 35-9. 



