Mr. Rupert W. Jack on Cape Honey-Bee. 397 



factory, and the observations of several recent French 

 naturalists are unfavourable to the idea that the sex of 

 an egg is determined by its fertilisation." Could it be 

 shown, therefore, that in a variety of Apis mellifica, closely 

 related to the variety with which Dzierzon and Von 

 Siebold conducted their experiments, unfertilised eggs may 

 and do produce female adults, the arguments of those 

 opposed to Dzierzon's explanation would be very greatly 

 strengthened, as few could credit the statement that the 

 fact of the egg being fertilised or not determines its sex in 

 respect to one variety of a species and not to all. An 

 examination of Mr. Onions' claim to have proved the 

 production of female offspring from Cape " laying workers," 

 with a view to giving his remarkable discoveries wider 

 publicity, is the object of this paper. 



Concerning the actual variety with which Mr. Onions' 

 experiments were conducted, Dr. Peringuey, Curator of the 

 S.A. Museum at Cape Town, who kindly examined speci- 

 mens for the writer, states that some authors consider the 

 variety identical with the typical European Apis mellifica, 

 L., but he himself is inclined to retain the varietal name 

 Jcaffra, as given by Lepelletien Specimens submitted to 

 the British Museum were, however, judged to belong to 

 the race unicolor var. intermissa, Latr. The identification 

 of the exact variety, therefore, appears to be a somewhat 

 difficult matter, and the writer is not in a position to ex- 

 press any opinion on the subject. The important fact is 

 that this bee is very closely allied to the typical Apis 

 mellifica, L. 



As far back as November 1909 a notice appeared in the 

 Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope stating 

 that Mr. Onions had deposited with the Government 

 Entomologist " an account of observations and experi- 

 ments conducted by himself, which tend to show that 

 laying workers of the native black honey-bee are far more 

 common than is generally supposed, and that their eggs 

 generally produce workers and not infrequently queens." 

 A full account of these and other observations of a similar 

 nature was published in the Agricultural Journal of the 

 S.A. Union for May 1912. Since that time Mr. Onions 

 has become a resident in S. Rhodesia, and has been able to 

 repeat some of his experiments with bees imported from 

 the Cape. Conditions in this territory are more favourable 

 for such observations than those at the Cape, for the 



