GENERAL NOTES 141 



fortunate tliat the Journal of Horticulture wap. not 

 exclusively a bee journal, and that Dr. Hogg was broad- 

 minded enough to realize that perhaps, after all, Dzierzon 

 had not «aid the last word on parthenogenesis in the bee. 

 When Hewitt attempted to make his discovery known 

 through the bee i)ress of Britain and America his main 

 <!onclusions were either suppressed or covered with 

 ridicule. No discoveries might be published which would 

 not tit into the Dzierzon theory. It is thus only by a kind 

 of accident that we can establish priority for the original 

 discoveres of an unsuspected peculiarity in the workers 

 of certain races of the honeybee. 



Euroi)ean bees, with which alone Dzierzon was familiar, 

 have one marked defect in their otherwise perfect 

 arrangements for preserving the continuity of tho stock 

 At the time when a virgin queen is ready to be mated 

 there is no other queen in the hive (except perhaps ill 

 supersedure) and there is no means of making one. The 

 virgin is the sole hope of the stock, and if she be lost or 

 fails to mate, that stock is doomed. 



HeAvitt had been working with Punic or Tunisian bees, 

 which he had imported direct from North Africa, and 

 found to differ greatly from the bees of Europe. For 

 example, a stock which had lost its virgin on her mating 

 flight, promptly developed laying workers, and raised 

 fjueens from the eggs of those workers. 



'' In one case a number of Punic workers entered 

 Rtr>ck of queeuless Carniolans and reared a queen from 

 the eggs they laid. This queen is now in the British 

 Museum." (1S92.) 



It is clear from the narrative that Hewitt had been 

 familiar with the facts for some considerable time, and 

 that his object was to get others to verify observations, 

 of the accuracy of which he entertained no doubt what 

 <iver. He proceeds to give directions for inducing Punic 

 bees to rear queens from the eggs of laying workers. The 

 aim is to reproduce as nearly as possible the conditions 

 of a stock that lias lost its queen on her mating flight. It 



