400 Mr. Rupert W. Jack on 



kept under observation until February 21st, in the hope 

 that the bees would set up a queen cell, but although they 

 hatched an egg in an old queen cell and fed the larva until 

 nearly full grown, they subsequently allowed it to starve. 

 In the meantime, another experiment was decided upon. 



On February 21st, therefore, Mr. Onions installed a 

 small colony of pure Rhodesian bees (var. adansoni) in a 

 second hive, and in the writer's presence removed the 

 queen. Two frames of honey only were carefully in- 

 spected and then placed in the hive, and two frames of 

 Cape worker brood from the queenless hive used in the first 

 experiment. The bees were brought in a swarm box, with 

 the queen already caged. The two frames of honey were 

 stated to have been in store for some time previously, and 

 were certainly free from any eggs or brood at the time of 

 insertion. The Rhodesian workers at once set up seven 

 queen cells on the introduced brood comb, which were all 

 sealed over by the 28th. On this day five of the queen 

 cells were covered over with gauze cages, one was acci- 

 dentally injured in manipulation, and one was left to 

 hatch out normally. In the meantime, two other events 

 had occurred. One of them was the appearance of mature 

 Cape " laying workers," apart from young bees hatched 

 from the introduced frame. These had evidently entered 

 from the other hive, and Mr. Onions stated that in his 

 apiary experience he had found that the Cape " laying 

 workers " were accepted in almost any hive, and were, 

 of course, an unmitigated nuisance on this account. The 

 other event was the development of a number of Rhodesian 

 " laying workens," which had scattered their eggs in great 

 abundance through the drone cells on the two frames that 

 had contained only honey. There were a dozen or more 

 eggs in each drone cell, and an examination of several 

 Rhodesian workers showed that they contained eggs in 

 abundance. 



The hive was not opened again until March 9th, when 

 all the queens had hatched except two, which were dead 

 in their cells. Two were alive in their cages and three 

 dead outside. All proved to be of the Cape variety. 



By this time it was impossible to deny that the Cape 

 laying workers produced workers in abundance, and perfect 

 females, if necessary. There was no possible source of 

 error, because practically no Cape bees are kept in S. 

 Rhodesia, and certainly there were none within miles of 



