VI QUEEN BEES AND WORKERS 26; 



the repression of the sexual organs, for when the worker 

 larvae royally fed develop into queens, they develop all the 

 characters of the queen. 



But the most interesting point is that the worker bees, 

 whose duty it is to feed the larvae, only in case of necessity, 

 only when no young queens exist, rear queens from worker 

 larvae. This almost compels the conclusion that they con- 

 sciously, under ordinary conditions, rear only workers, au 

 abundance of which is so necessary to the community. But 

 even if they do this instinctively, how do they attain to their 

 wisdom with regard to rearing queens and to many other 

 matters ? It can, it seems, be no more inherited from their 

 parents, queen and drone, than the winglessness of worker 

 ants from the winged parents — indeed, much less, for the 

 wisdom of the worker bees is in many respects much greater 

 than that of the parents. These mental faculties of the 

 worker bee exist in germ in the worker larvae, and if these 

 do not receive the royal food those faculties develop ; yet 

 when the larvae are fed with the food of larval queens, the 

 peculiar mental characters of the queen, not those of the 

 w^orker, are developed together with the sexual organs and 

 other bodily characters. And all this is brought to pass by a 

 little more nourishment ! 



But all this can only be explained with the aid of the 

 inheritance of acquired characters, by a very large measure of 

 this inheritance, and by correlation. Not in the least, on the 

 other hand, by the continuity and variability of the germ- 

 plasm, and by sexual mixture or pammixis. 



The larvae of bees must have inherited in their brains 

 the possibility of a number of faculties which have been 

 acquired by their ancestors. I say possibility intentionally, 

 and not rudiments, in order to prevent misunderstand- 

 ing. For w^e have here to deal not with rudiments, 

 which would have to be developed into complete facul- 



