» 264 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
cially connected with wasps. The principle has been 
clearly explained, in its application to the honey-bee, 
by the researches of Siebold and Dzierzon; but it 
remains for other observers to extend it to other 
families of insects. And the natural history of wasps 
needs this light on some of its more obscure chapters. 
The theory of Parthenogenesis in all its details 
could hardly be compressed within the limits of this 
chapter; and I must refer those who would master 
it fully to Siebold’s work, where the accurate obser- 
vations on which it has been founded are recorded at 
length. It will be enough here to recapitulate the 
general conclusions from these observations. 
The fact has been established, beyond doubt, that 
the sex of the future honey-bee depends on whether 
the egg has been fertilized or not on its passage 
from the ovaries. Fertilized eggs produce females, 
which are perfect or imperfect as the subsequent 
nourishment of the larve may determine. Eggs 
which have not been fertilized produce only males; 
and a female bee, which has not been impregnated, 
from her mability to fly or from whatever other 
cause, can only lay drone eggs. The close attention 
which has in all ages been devoted to honey-bees 
had led bee-keepers long ago to the conclusion that 
a morbid condition of the queen bee often prevented 
her producing anything but drone brood; but a 
scientific inquiry has raised this general inference to 
the dignity of an established principle. 
Now let us apply this principle to explain the 
results which regularly ensue, in a swarm of wasps, 
on the removal of the queen. When she has been 
taken with the nest, and the swarm has been left to 
