4O MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY. 



about to examine namely, in the honey-bee the phenomena 

 which have been described are now generally accepted as free 

 from doubt. A hive of bees consists of three classes of indi- 

 viduals : i, a "queen," or fertile female; 2, the "workers," 

 which form the bulk of the community, and are really unde- 

 veloped or sterile females; and, 3, the "drones," or males, 

 which are only produced at certain times of the year. We 

 have here three distinct sets of beings, all of which proceed 

 from a single fertile individual; and the question arises, In 

 what manner are the differences between these produced ? At 

 a certain period of the year the queen leaves the hive, accom- 

 panied by the drones (or males), and takes what is known as 

 her "nuptial flight" through the air. In this flight she is 

 impregnated by the males ; and in virtue of this single impreg- 

 nation, she is enabled to produce fresh individuals for a length- 

 ened period, the semen of the males being stored up in a 

 receptacle which communicates by a tube with the oviduct, 

 from which it can be shut off at will. The ova which are to 

 produce workers (undeveloped females) and queens (fertile 

 females) are fertilised on their passage through the oviduct, 

 the semen being allowed to escape into the oviduct for this 

 purpose. The subsequent development of these fecundated 

 ova into workers or queens depends entirely upon the form of 

 the cell into which the ovum is placed, and upon the nature of 

 the food which is supplied to the larva. So far there is no 

 doubt as to the nature of the phenomena which are observed. 

 It is asserted, however, by Dzierzon and Siebold, that the 

 males or drones are produced by the queen from ova which 

 she does not allow to come into contact with the semen as they 

 pass throught the oviduct. This assertion is supported by the 

 fact that if the communication between the receptacle for the 

 semen and the oviduct be cut off, the queen will produce 

 nothing but males. Also, in crosses between the common 

 honey-bee and the Ligurian bee, the queens and workers alone 

 exhibit any intermediate characters between the two forms, the 

 drones presenting the unmixed characters of the queen by 

 whom they were produced. 



If these observations are to be accepted as established and 

 there can be no hesitation in accepting them as in the main 

 correct then the drones are produced by a true process of 

 parthenogenesis ; but some observers maintain that the devel- 

 opment of any given ovum into a drone is really due as in 

 the case of the queens and workers to the special circum- 

 stances under which the larva is brought up.* 

 * In the case of Polistes Gallica, Von Siebold appears to have proved 



