The Life of the Bee 



precaution — of Nature, that is known 

 as parthenogenesis, and is common to a 

 certain number of insects, such as the 

 aphides, the lepidoptera of the Psyche 

 genus, the hymenoptera of the Cynipede 

 family, etc. The virgin queen is able to 

 lay; but from all the eggs that she will 

 deposit in the cells, be these large or 

 small, there will issue males alone ; and 

 as these never work, as they live at the 

 expense of the females, as they never go 

 foraging except on their own account, 

 and are generally incapable of providing 

 for their subsistence, the result will be, 

 at the end of some weeks, that the last 

 exhausted worker will perish, and the 

 colony be ruined and totally annihilated. 

 The queen, we have said, will produce 

 thousands of drones ; and each of these 

 will possess millions of the spermatozoa 

 whereof it is impossible that a single one 

 can have penetrated into the organism of 

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