THE BRIDE-WIDOW i2i 



details of her common everyday life that succeed 

 this tense period, above all in the wonderful 

 structure of her body and its functions, there is 

 greater romance still. That she has but a single 

 commerce with the drone, and thereafter is exalted 

 to perpetual fecundity ; that, through her, sons 

 and daughters can be given to the hive in just the 

 proportion needed for the good of the State, or 

 that increase of population can be wholly arrested 

 at will, are facts to be accredited only after sure 

 knowledge. And to understand how these results 

 are brought about, it is necessary to learn some- 

 thing of the anatomy, as well as the manner of 

 fecundation, of the mother-bee. 



In the first place, as fertilisation of the one sex 

 by the other is usually regarded, the queen-bee is 

 not fertilised at all. The vital essence of the 

 drone does not penetrate the ovaries of the queen, 

 but passes immediately after coition into a re- 

 ceptacle specially provided for it, where it is stored, 

 and its effectiveness preserved, during nearly the 

 whole lifetime of the queen. It has been shown 

 that the virgin queen is able to lay eggs from 

 which only drones, or male bees, originate. The 

 fecundated queen, however, can lay both male and 

 female eggs, and she has the power of depositing 

 either kind when and wherever she wills. The 

 whole thing, amazing as it is, and far-reaching in 

 its results, has, like many other extraordinary 

 devices in nature, a simple explanation. The 



