IN THE HONEY-BEE. 57 



its queen, that individual workers lay eggs. This phenomenon 

 has long been known to every experienced Bee-keeper ; nay, it 

 had already been observed, that only drones are developed from 

 these eggs laid by workers*; but it is only from the attentive 

 observer Dzierzon that we know why such egg-laying workers 

 are always the parents of drones, or, in other words, why only 

 drones are always developed from these eggs produced by 

 workers, if they attain to development. This phenomenon stands 

 in the closest connexion with the drone-productiveness of the 

 virgin queen-bees already mentioned. 



It was ascertained anatomically by Mademoiselle Jurine, that 

 the worker-bees are nothing but female Bees whose sexual or- 

 gans are abortedf. By careful dissection the ovarian tubes not 

 perfectly developed may be exhibited in all workers, connected 

 with an undeveloped oviduct. I have already shown in the year 

 1843, that in all workers, there is connected with this undeve- 

 loped oviduct, an appendage which perfectly represents the 

 seminal receptacle of the queens. On this appendage I could 

 discover the seminal duct, the seminal capsule, and the two 

 appendicular glands, with their common efferent duct in the 

 workers, but all these separate parts of the seminal receptacle 

 were in a very undeveloped state J. 



In what follows, I will endeavour to explain by what cause 

 the ovarian tubes, which in the normally-formed workers always 

 remain empty, may become exceptionally filled with eggs in 

 certain workers. It is well known to Apiarians, that in hives 

 which have suddenly lost their queen, the workers, if they wish 

 to put themselves in possession of a new queen, select some 

 worker- cells furnished with an egg or a young larva, and enlarge 

 these into royal cells (queen's cradles), and that they do not 

 then bring up the larvae which are excluded from the eggs al- 



* See Huber, Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles, p. 194. Even in the 

 time of Aristotle similar observations had been made, as appears from these 

 words : " Dicunt indicio esse, quod fucorum foetus innascantur etiam, ubi 

 reges absint, apum autem non innascantur." See Aristotelis de Animalibus 

 Histories, lib. v. cap. 18 (ed. Schneider). 



\" See the works of Huber and Ratzeburg already quoted (p. 3). 



J See my memoir upon the Receptaculum seminis of the female Hymen- 

 optera. Germar's Zeitschrift fur die Entomol. bd. iv. p. 375. 



