608 Power of the Common Bee 



are, consequently, unable so fully to develope themselves as 

 their original disposition required. They must, however, as 

 the germ to a great drone bee is once inherent in the egg, 

 obtain in the progress of their growth some enlargement of 

 their contracted cells, and, consequently, must come forth as 

 natural drones, like their fathers : simply, however, that they 

 appear more diminutive than their fathers, who were bred in 

 the great regular cells of the drones. Or, secondly, they are 

 bred in the regular drone cells appropriate to their nature 

 and their original dispositions ; and therefrom issue the great 

 drone bees, which must be considered as genuine males, accord- 

 ing to the result of anatomical experience. 



It may be easily supposed that a system of this kind should 

 meet with a number of opponents, and that it should be 

 attacked on all sides with the utmost severity, at the same 

 time that it met with many adherents. From this system, and 

 that of Harold, another theory was raised by Privy Counsellor 

 Voigt, in Schwarzbach, near Culmbach; and Precentor Lucas, 

 in Nischwitz, near Wiirzen. According to their system, the 

 queen is the real mother of all the bees ; laying, during eight 

 months of every year, an almost incredible number of fructi- 

 fied eggs ; from which, in twenty or twenty-four days, the 

 common working bees are bred, which, in their sexual cha- 

 racter, are both male and female. The males, by means of 

 their mouth, fructify not only the queen, but also their sisters, 

 the common female bees or mother drones; and from the 

 eggs laid by the latter, in the month of May or June, the 

 drones are actually bred. The fructification or vivification of 

 so many thousand eggs is wholly performed and executed by 

 the principle of life, or by the animating creative spiritual 

 power, the well-known aw^a seminalis contained in the spittle, 

 which may be considered as the vehicle of it, and the process 

 of which is so very visible in the frequent application of the 

 proboscis of the common male bees to that of the queen. 



This system may, therefore, be considered as follows : — 



Power of production and reproduction. 



^y— " 



(a) Working Bees. (6) Mother Bee. 



Working Bees. 



I. 



Sphere of 

 production. 



1. Absolute Nature, (a) Male power (b) Female power "j g 



of reproduction. of reproduction. I c i * r 



2. Relative Nature. ' DrZ'^. ' J reproduction. 



For the truth of this system, an appeal is made to expe- 

 rience, which shows that common bees, with a queen, can 

 compose a perfect hive, without a single drone being con- 



