726 JOHN BEARD, 



to lay in drone-cells, for in all the cases of this kind described the 

 resulting young from the drone-cells were workers, not drones ! The 

 converse experiment with queens laying in worker-cells was, of course, 

 carried out with females, which had been prevented from copulation, 

 or which were known to contain no sperms. 



These facts ^), however, while significant for the question of the 

 existence of two categories of eggs in the bee, have little bearings 

 upon that recorded by Weismann. Because sometimes whole batches 

 of eggs, which become females, are laid in drone-cells, the assumption 

 that in the one instance observed by Weismann the egg would have 

 given rise to a worker, instead of to a drone, had it developed further, 

 is not warranted. 



Additional and very strong evidence of the possibility of fertili- 

 sation of the eggs in drone-cells in the bee without influence 

 upon their sex is afforded by the experiments of Dzierzon, 

 Perez, Mulot, Dickel and others in crossing German or French and 

 Italian races. 



These experiments of Dzierzon's will be found recordad in von 

 Siebold's well-known work 2). According to Dickel ^), they have 

 since been repeated by himself. Mulot, and others named by him, in 

 the converse order, but with the like result. It had recently 

 become the practice to "bastardise" hives of bees by the introduction 

 of Italian queens into colonies of German workers and drones, or of 



1) Bessels' experiment no. 5 (1. c. p. 131 — 132) places the still 

 current belief, that the queen-bee can influence the sex of her eggs by 

 fertilising them or not, in another light. The queen here in question 

 had her spermatheca filled with sperms, as a later examination proved. 

 She was compelled to lay her eggs in a comb of drone-cells. This 

 she finally did unwillingly. Bessels writes "the result of this experiment 

 could naturally already a priori be foreseen", that is, under normal 

 circumstances the eggs laid would have given rise to workers. This turned 

 out to be the case, although they were all laid in drone-cells ! If she 

 possesses the power, why did she not omit to fertilise these eggs? 

 The true reason is clear. In the first place, the sexes of the eggs in 

 question had already been decided in the ovary, and in the second, as 

 a result of this they were capable of fertilisation, and she could not 

 prevent it. 



2) VON SiEBOLD, C. T. E., Wahre Parthenogenesis bei Schmetter- 

 lingen und Bienen, Leipzig 1856, p. 96. 



S) in: Anat. Anz., V. 19, p. 110-111. 



