326 Cincinnati Horticultural Society — Proceedings. [July, 



Mr. Longworth's communication on the subject of grafting tlie 

 Plum and the Grape, reported progress, and the committee was con- 

 tinued. 



Mr. Ward, from the Council, announced that the City Lot, be- 

 tween Eighth and Ninth-streets and Plum and Western-row, had 

 been secured as the place for the Society's annual exhibition in Sep- 

 tember, and that the privilege had been granted free of charge ; 

 whereupon, on motion of Mr. Howarth, the Society tendered a 

 vote of thanks to the City Council for their generous grant in that 

 behalf. 



The special order, being Professor Ward's paper on the Honey-bee, 

 was announced by the Chair, and Professor Ward proceeded to give 

 a highly interesting and instructive lecture upon that highly interest- 

 ing and instructive insect, the Honey-bee. As time would not permit 

 to give anything like a full exhibit of the peculiar economy character- 

 istic of this wonderful insect at a single session, Professor Ward 

 confined himself, for the present, to the physiology and functions of 

 the propagative system of the Bee. He discussed the sexual organ- 

 ism characteristic of the three classes, the queens, the drones and 

 the workers ; the queens being females, the drones males, and the 

 workers practically neuters, or, more properly, females, but without 

 a full development of the sexual organism. The idea having gain- 

 ed credence that the queen-mother had a specific capacity for deter- 

 mining the particular sex of her offspring according to her own in- 

 stinctive will, Professor Ward suggested that, among the many 

 errors that had crept into the entomology of the Bee, this was prob- 

 ably one, and advanced the original suggestion that the determina- 

 tion of the sex of the fecundated ova depended rather upon the 

 mechanical pressure upon the body of the queen mother, incident 

 to the different capacity of the cells, than upon any supposable vol- 

 Tintary determination on her part. This, Professor W. said, he in- 

 timated as an opinion, and requested members to aid him in a con- 

 clusion by their separate observations. 



The lecture was characterized by ability and research, and was re- 

 ceived with great satisfaction by the audience present. At its close, 

 Mr. Ernst moved that, in view of the great interest which the sub- 

 ject affords, and the impossibility of discussing it fully at one time, 

 Professor Wahd be solicited to continue the same, as a series, before 

 the Society ; and that the same be set for the special order at each 

 weekly meeting until completed — which was unanimously adopted. 



