THE BEE-KEEPERS REVIEW 



273 



had happened and the food and eg^ 

 were in, instead of having fallen out 

 throiig-h the hole. 



That's instinct, absolutely nothing- 

 else. And it is larjj^ely the same way 

 throughout the whole animal kingdom. 

 Even in the human race, instinct plays 

 a larger part than might be at first 

 supposed. Parental and sexual in- 

 fluences are mostly due to our physical 

 peculiarities. But we say it is nature, 

 not instinct, though, after all, instinct 

 is nature. 



Against the supposition that the 

 compression of the cell determines the 

 sex of the egg, it might also be stated 

 that, if true, with our bees, it would 

 be also true, with other kinds of bees, 

 and allied insects, such as wasps, 

 etc.; but we find at once that it cannot 

 be. The drones of Apis Dorsata are 

 raised in the same cells as the workers. 

 In Apis Indica the drones are smaller 

 than the workers. Among wild bees, 

 there are no cells at all in many cases. 



INFLUENCE OF FOOD. 



Some writers have asserted that the 

 workers transmit their qualities to the 

 young bees through the food they give 

 them. It ma\' not be very polite for me 

 to say so, but it is certain that only 

 men completely ignorant of the physi- 

 ology of nutrition or very peculiar in 

 their opinions could ever maintain such 

 a proposition. 



What would become of a child, or 

 even a grown man, if he would inherit 

 the qualities of the cow or goat which 

 furnishes him the milk he drinks ? Or 

 if the eggs and meat he ma}' eat raw 

 have the same influence on him, not 

 speaking of the oysters ? And how 

 could it be, anyway, since the food, 

 before being assimilated, is completely 

 transformed, through different organs ? 

 After being thus transformed, it arrives 

 in the blood. The blood distributes it 

 wherever needed. What becomes of it 

 does not depend on ts nature, but 

 on the nature of the organ to which it 

 is assimilated. The same food be- 



comes muscle, bone, hair, or anything 

 else, according to where it goes. 



And the same conditions obtain 

 when the young animal is growing. 

 The food assimilated produces organs 

 which are determined by the egg or 

 female germ to which the male germ 

 may or may not be added. 



The only way the food may influence 

 the offspring is by its quantity and 

 quality, as such, and, therefore, a more 

 or less perfect development is obtained. 

 That explanation is not very clear but 

 I do not see exactly how to make it 

 plainer but an example will show what 

 I mean. 



Let us plant a grain of wheat in a 

 poor soil, and a grain of corn in a rich 

 ground. We will obtain two plants 

 very different. But it would be absurd 

 to say that if the grain of wheat had 

 been planted in the rich ground it 

 would have produced a plant of corn. 

 The wheat produced on poor ground is 

 not like that produced on rich ground, 

 but it is wheat all the same. 



So it is in the animal kingdom. The 

 characteristics of an animal are deter- 

 mined by the original male and female 

 germs. The food is merely a question 

 of development. And this depends on 

 the quality and quantity of the food 

 as such, without regard to its origin. 



In the case of queen bees, both the 

 queen organs and the worker organs, 

 or, rather, the original cells, from 

 which they will develop, exist in the 

 fecundated egg, and it is only a ques- 

 tion of which will be fully developed. 



REFERENCES. 



Some one will undoubtedly' want to 

 know where are my "authorities" for 

 all the above. Among the bee books, I 

 would refer to Cheshire, Langstroth 

 revised. Prof. Cook and Quinby re- 

 vised by L. C. Root. 



For the question of nutrition, develop- 

 ment of animals, etc., in a word biolog- 

 ical questions, any of the advanced 

 treatises on physiology' and biology. 

 The elementary school books are not 



