Reproduction in the Honey Bee. 553 
produced by the others were of a varied and motley 
character, some Egypto-Italians, and some of a hght 
leaden character, forming a variety sui generis. No 
drones were produced by any of the fecundated queens 
till towards the close of October, when I was astonished 
to find some few appearing; but as they were all as 
badly coloured as the workers, I concluded that a 
change of queen might have occurred without my know- 
ledge, and that the swpposed successor had been a drone- 
breeder, as no young workers appeared. I examined 
the interior of the hive, and found the queen to be no 
new princess, but, apparently, the same queen which 
was reared in summer, but with tattered wings, as 
though she had suffered much by an encasement—that 
injurious and often mysterious phenomenon to which I 
have frequently and fully directed the attention of 
-apiarians in the “ Journai of Horticulture. ” 
This was the first serious awakening of my suspicions 
as to the truth of Dzierzon’s theory, though, from the 
nature of the case, the evidence was by no means satis- 
factory. 
In the middle of May, 1867, others of my hybridized 
Egyptian queens produced drones of the same varied 
character ; some tolerably well marked, and others very 
badly marked. Of three hives containing pure Egyptian 
queens, and now exhibiting drones, not one produced 
male or worker brood equal to the original stock. The 
drones, in the marking or colour, correspond in some 
measure with the marking or colour of the workers ; 
that is, the queen which ‘produces the worst workers 
shows the worst marked drones, and the queen which 
produces the best workers produces also the best marked 
drones. One of the queens, which had evidently been 
hybridized by a Ligurian drone, as the workers were very 
beautiful hybrids, produced some drones almost equal to 
those of the original queen, some very poorly marked, 
and some, apparently, partaking more of the Ligurian 
character. There seems to be, thus,a general correspon- 
dence of the purity of the drones to the purity of the 
workers, though I shall be better able to decide as to 
this when the drones get more numerous.* The import- 
ant fact, however, is, that these pure Egyptian queens, 
* Subsequent observations confirmed these remarks, in the case of 
al! my hybridized Egyptian stocks, four in number.—J. L., Dee. 1867. 
