INTRODUCTION. 



whom such an attempt might have served as an instructive 

 hint. In this dispute of the Apiarians, which was constantly 

 blazing up afresh, the activity of the naturalists limited itself 

 to their ascertaining and establishing as an incontestable truth, 

 by the aid of the dissecting-knife and the microscope, that the 

 drones are the male individuals, that the queen is the female 

 individual, and that the workers are not merely asexual, but 

 female individuals, the reproductive organs of which had not 

 come to their full development. Upon this subject, investiga- 

 tions were made and published by the zootomists at very dif- 

 ferent periods. I refer only to the works of Swammerdam*, 

 Reaumur f, Mademoiselle JurineJ, Suckow§, and Ratzeburg||. 

 Although the representations of the male and female sexual 

 organs of the Bees have been copied from Swammerdam's Biblia 

 Natures by various writers upon these insects, and consequently 

 the facts established anatomically were communicated to the Api- 

 arians, yet for a long time these truths could not boast of a re- 

 cognition by all Bee-keepers. These entomotomic investigations 

 probably did not appear sufficiently significant to the Apiarians, 

 because there were still many things in the history of tHe re- 

 production of the Bees, which could not be explained with this 

 knowledge of the sexual relations of these animals. Many 

 practical Apiarians looked upon this anatomical proof of the 

 sexes of Bees merely as theoretical stuff, and returned to their 

 so-called practical way, which they imagined to be the right one, 

 without regard to these facts, preferring to explain the different 



* Bibel der Natur, 1752, pp. 188 & 202, taf. 19 & 21. 



t Memoires pour servir a VHistoire des Insectes, tome v. 1/41, pi. 32-34, 

 which portion appeared in 1759 translated into German under the title of 

 " Geschichte der Bienen." 



I Vide Huber, Nouvelles observations sur les Abeilles, 2de edit. 1814, p. 431 . 

 pi. 11. fig. 1. In this work are deposited the interesting anatomical investiga- 

 tions of the above-mentioned lady, by whom the existence of abortive ovaries 

 in the Worker-Bees was first ascertained; they are represented in an admirable 



figure prepared by herself. 



§ Heusinger's Zeitschrift fur Organische Physik, Band ii. Heft 3, 1828, 



p. 231. taf. 12. fig. 30, taf. 14. fig. 38. 



|| Brandt und Ratzeburg, Medizin. Zoologie,\833, p. 202. taf. 25. figs. 34,35, 

 as well as Ratzeburg's Untersuchung des Geschlechtszust andes In i den soge- 

 nanntenNeutris der Bienen unduber die Verwandtschaft derselben mit den I\ imtg- 

 innen, 1833, in the Nova Acta Physico-Medica, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 613. tab. 1, . 



B 2 



