SEX OF EGGS. 55 



swarms, lays her eggs in cells not an eighth of an 

 inch deep ; this she does both in worker and drone 

 cells, yet they always produce workers and drones 

 respectively, with the same regularity as if the cells 

 had been built the usual length at the time the eggs 

 were deposited. 



SEX OF EGGS 1 . 



That the sex of the eggs is determined at, or pre- 

 vious to the time of deposit in the cells by the queen, 

 there can be no doubt, as all the eggs laid in drone 

 cells produce drones only, while those laid in worker 

 cells can be developed perfect queens or workers at 

 the pleasure of the nursing bees. To prove this I give 

 the following experience. In practicing the dividing 

 system I have frequently found the bees to build a 

 portion of the queen cells on drone comb containing 

 drone larvae, and in three instances all built being the 

 same. In two of the cases I supplied comb the second 

 time, containing eggs and larvae, both in the worker 

 and drone cells, and in both cases the queen cells 

 were all built on the drorte comb, and in one instance 

 this was repeated three successive times. I have 

 given these apparent queen cells repeatedly to queen- 

 less colonies, but in no instance have either queen or 

 drone emerged from them. I have opened nearly 

 one hundred of these cells, and at various times, and 

 have found them to contain larvae of considerable 

 size, but none had ever become a pupa, but had died 

 on reaching that age. These cells are larger than 



