110 GENERAL NOTES 



the time except that one or two Cape beekeepers wrote 

 refusing to believe the story. Mr. Onions, however, wa;* 

 not discouraged, and when he removed to Rhodesia he 

 sought help of the Division of Entomology at Salisbury 

 Mr. R. P. Jack, F.E.S., undertook the superintendence 

 and checking of fresh exi^eriments in parthenogensis, 

 to be carried out at Salisbury, but with bees from Cape 

 Colony. A full account of those further experiments, con- 

 ducted with scientific care, was published in June, 1917. 

 in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of 

 liOndon. Mr. Jack is convinced that ^fr. Onions has 

 proved his conclusion that Avorkers of the Cape bee " am 

 apt to develop the habit of laying eggs, ar.d that these 

 eggs ma}^ produce workers, queens or drones, but do, as 

 a matter of fact, mainly produce workers.'' 



Dr. Phillips, Mr. Onions and Mr. Jack seem to have 

 been unaware that the power of certain worker bees to 

 produce female offspring was noted, and the facts pub 

 lished, many years before the appearance of ^Ir. Onions' 

 first paper in 11)12. The oversight is pardonable in the 

 case of Philli])s, Onions and Jack, because such recent 

 writers could hardly be expected to know that valuable 

 papers on beekeeping used to appear in the Journal of 

 Horticulture, published at London and edited by Robert 

 Hogg, L.L.D., F.L.S. English contributors to the Journal 

 of Horticulture included Cheshire, Woodbury, Hewitt, 

 and the two Carrs, while among the Scottish wiiter.s 

 were Pettigrew, Thomson, Raitt and McPhedran. Every 

 one of these writers made additions of permanent value to 

 our knowledge of beekeeping, though, with the exceptions 

 of Cheshire and '' W.B.C." their names are scarcely 

 known to the present generation of British ])eekee])ers. 



John Plewitt, of Sheffield, England (and his name 

 ought to be mentioned with those of Scliiraclj. Tluber, 

 Dzierzon and the other great masters) made his obser- 

 vations on laying workers more than 80 years ag<\ and 

 published a brief account of them in the journal of Horti 

 culture for 1802 (August 11, page 134). It was perhaps 



