CXXVil 
queen bee-to perform it for him. He took an ordinary queen and 
placed her in a hive with a comb containing drone-cells only. She 
was for some time disturbed by this unusual state of things, but after 
awhile made a virtue of necessity, and commenced laying her eggs in 
the drone-cells. These eggs in due time produced ordinary workers. 
Again, M. Bessels took a young virgin queen, and by clipping her 
wings rendered her incapable of marriage. He then placed her in a 
hive with acomb which had no drone-cells, in spite of which her 
eggs produced nothing but drones. As far as they go, these two ex- 
periments, ingenious as they are, seem to me less conclusive than 
those of Berlepsch. Under ordinary circumstances the bees appear 
to regulate the food of the young larva according to the nature of the 
cell in which it is placed, but we cannot take for granted that they 
would do so under such exceptional conditions as when all the cells 
were of the same character. 
M. Bessels’ next experiment, however, is not open to this ob- 
jection. He took combs which contained drone-cells only, and 
placed them in a hive which he deprived of its queen. The bees, 
in the usual manner, selected two or three of the larve, altered the 
form of the cells, and commenced feeding them with royal food. The 
drone larve, however, did not thrive under this unnatural treatment, 
but perished; not, however, until the generative organs were suffi- 
ciently developed to show that they were true males. This experi- 
ment he repeated three times, always with a similar result. 
M. Bessels does not seem to have been aware that Huber had 
already made this experiment. Huber could not indeed induce an 
ordinary queen, during her course of laying workers’ eggs, to lay ina 
drone-cell, but he did cause a “ retarded,” or, as we should say, virgin 
queen, to lay in worker cells and even in royal ones. In these cases 
the workers fed the larva respectively with worker food and royal 
food, but Huber expressly tells us that males only were produced, 
though in the former case they were of small size from insufficient 
nourishment. This experiment of Huber’s, which seems conclusive, 
appears to have been overlooked by Dr. Landois as well as by his 
opponents. 
In the ‘ Comptes Rendus’ for November is a short notice of a memoir, 
by M. Lespés,* on blind Coleoptera. He has examined the nervous 
system of Apheenops Leschenaultii (one of the Carabide), of Adelops 
* ‘Comptes Rendus,’ 1867, p. 890. 
