XXVll 



" I have much to state of the impregnation of the queen-bee and against the 

 parthenogenesis theory of the present day, or the power of the queen to leave 

 her eggs unfertilized so as to produce either workers or drones. I believe the 

 female is the early impregnation, and the male the later impregnation, as found 

 in fact amongst animals as a rule, especially in cattle ; the last of a series of 

 ova become drones, and the earlier the workers. The eggs all have to pass 

 through the common oviduct, and thus pass the mouth of the spermatotheca : 

 now whilst there is no doubt there are muscles, as Siebold has proved by 

 dissection, to extrude or restrain the eggs, these voluntary muscles have to be 

 guided. Siebold and Dzierzon say that instinct will tell the queen when to exer- 

 cise her judgment truly : at the moment when she pushes her abdomen into a 

 wide drone cell or the narrow cell of the worker, the distinction of the wider and 

 narrower cells will certainly be felt out by a normal queen with her abdomen ; 

 (but here let me remark this queen's abdomen, if about to lay her last series 

 or drone eggs, is larger and heavier than in her first laying workers' eggs in 

 the spring) ; but, says Siebold, she well knows by the sensation of the touch 

 that she must fertilize the eggs to be deposited in a narrow cell, whilst she has 

 to lay the egg without fecundation in a wide cell. But it is a fact that eggs 

 are laid constantly in unfinished workers' cells, and extruded as well into drone 

 cells, two or three eggs in a cell, when the queen has by some cause been 

 driven to delay laying after impregnation. But the fecundated egg being 

 required for the queen-bee, Dzierzon and Siebold have to find another reason, 

 and they add that ' by the peculiar texture of an incomplete royal cell too, a 

 normal queen wUl be instinctively induced to fertilize the egg to be deposited 

 in it.' T believe Prof. Owen has been misquoted by Siebold and Dzierzon; 

 and I feel assured that the latter has also accidentally misdirected Siebold that 

 the eggs of queens " are only of one of the same kind, which when they are laid 

 without coming into contact with the male semen become male bees, but, on 

 the contrary, when they are fertilized by male semen produce female bees." 

 I must leave the matter at this point ; although I have ample evidence to 

 prove the impregnation of the ' fertile workers ' as well as the normal queens, 

 and to show how mistake has crept into the microscopic dissections of the eggs, 

 when every egg must be fertilized in passing the spermatotheca, especially if 

 the eggs be all of one size, as has been stated by Dzierzon ; but the entrance of 

 the spermatozoa is at the base of the egg (the future mouth of the larva), and 

 absorption introduces the semen into the egg, as I shall be prepared to show 

 on another occasion. 



" Briefly, my facts are these. A fertile impregnated queen lays eggs, female 

 and male in succession : these are all necessarily fertilized as they descend 

 through the common oviduct whilst passing the spermatotheca ; and each 

 spermatozoon, adhering to the base of the egg, and agglutinated to the cell by 

 the queen, in due time enters the egg, the chorion is broken, and the larva is 

 seen when the small transparent sack is floated in the sugar and water : here 



