NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 55 



regarded as neither males nor females, they were called 

 Neuters ; but careful microscopic examinations, by detect- 

 ing the rudiments of their ovaries, have determined their 

 sex. The accuracy of these examinations has been verified 

 by the well known facts respecting fertile workers. 



Eiem, a German Apiarian, first discovered that workers 

 sometimes lay eggs. Huber subsequently ascertained that 

 such workers were bred in hives that had lost their queen, 

 and near the royal cells hi which young queens were being 

 reared. He conjectured that small portions of the peculiar 

 food of these infant queens were accidentally dropped 

 into their cells, by eating which their reproductive organs 

 were more developed than those of other workers. 



In the Summer of 1854, 1 examined a brood-comb which 

 had been given to a queenless colony. It contained eleven 

 sealed queens ; and numbers of the cells were capped with 

 a round covering, as though they contained drones. 

 Being opened, some contained drone, and others worker- 

 nymphs. The latter seemed of a little more sugar-loaf 

 shape than the common workers, and their cocoons were 

 of a coarser texture than usual. I had previously noticed 

 the same kind of cells in hives raising artificial queens, but 

 thought they all contained drones. It is a well known 

 fact, that bees often begin more queen-cells than they 

 choose to finish. It seems to me probable, therefore, that 

 when rearing queens artificially, they frequently give a 

 portion of the royal jelly to larva?, which, for some reason, 

 they do not develope as full grown queens ; and that such 

 larva? become fertile workers. Huber states that those 

 fertile workers which lay only drone-eggs, prefer large 

 cells in which to deposit them, resorting to small ones, 

 only when unable to find those of greater diameter. A 

 hive in my Apiary having much worker-comb, but only a 

 small piece of drone size, a fertile worker filled the latter 



