46 PARTHENOGENESIS 



not merely to trace what went on in a bee-hive from clay to day, 

 or from hour to hour, — he could even convince himself most 

 exactly, with his own eyes, at any time, as to what was taking 

 place in every individual cell of the different combs in his hives. 

 He was also enabled in this way to procure a knowledge of all 

 the proceedings of the workers in the interior of the hive between 

 the combs, and also to witness the doings of the queen bee. 

 These were all advantages which even the celebrated hives with 

 glass walls could not in the least present, as these latter bee- 

 hives only permitted the surface of a single comb which was 

 turned towards the glass to be inspected, but otherwise allowed 

 but a very small and extremely imperfect insight into the inte- 

 rior of a colony of Bees. 



Dzierzon could give the most exact account of the condition 

 of his bee-hives. He knew the number and kind of the cells 

 which were daily or hourly supplied with eggs by the queen ; 

 he knew in what time the larvae in the eggs laid arrived at their 

 exclusion ; he was enabled to observe the gradual growth of the 

 larva; he could exactly ascertain what kind of food was fur- 

 nished to this or that larva by the workers ; he could acquire 

 the most positive information as to the time of pupation of a bee- 

 larva, as to the period of the escape of the Bee from the covered 

 cell, and as to the number and nature of the queen's cells; in 

 this way he was always informed in what condition the queen 

 governing a bee-hive was ; he could detect every disturbance, 

 every irregularity, which, induced by multifarious circumstances, 

 easily occurs in the well-ordered oeconomy of a hive, as quickly 

 as its cause. 



What advantages this must have afforded to an Apiarian 

 endowed with such an acute and unprejudiced power of obser- 

 vation as Dzierzon, may be easily imagined. By this agency 

 the most important and instructive information regarding the 

 proceedings of a Bee-colony might flow in upon that acute 

 observer, and it could not but happen that at last the ex- 

 tremely remarkable and concealed process of the reproduction 

 of the Bees would be correctly penetrated by the eye of man. 



which the removal and suspension of the combs are greatly facilitated, and 

 altogether such a convenient arrangement is given to the Dzierzon hive, that 

 nothing more remains to be desired. 



