Drones Pure if Queen is Pure, 107 
ment, have fully and completely confirmed this theory. 
Yet, if the impure mating of our cows, horses, and fowls, 
tenders the females of mixed blood ever afterward, as is 
believed and taught by many who would seem most com- 
petent to judge—though I must say I am somewhat skep- 
tical in the matter—then we must look closely as to our 
bees, for certainly, if a mammal, and especially if a fowl, is 
tainted by impure mating, then we may expect the same of 
insects. In fowls such influence, if it exist, must come 
simply from the presence in the female generative organs 
of the sperm-cells, or spermatozoa, and in mammals, too, 
there is little more than this, for though they are vivi- 
porous, so that the union and contact of the offspring and 
mother seem very intimate during the fetal development, 
yet there is no intermingling of blood, for a membrane 
ever separates that of the mother from that of the fetus, 
and only the nutritious and waste elements pass from one 
to the other. To claim that the mother is tainted through 
the circulation, is like claiming that the same result would 
follow her inhaling the breath of her progeny after birth. 
If such taint be produced, it probably comes through the 
power of a cell to change those cells contiguous to it. That 
cells have such power is proved every day in case of 
wounds, and the spread of any disease. I can only say, 
that I believe this whole matter is still involved in doubt, 
and still needs more careful, scientific and prolonged 
observation. 
THE NEUTERS, OR WORKER BEES. 
These, called “the bees” by Aristotle, and even by 
Wildman and Bevan, are by far the most numerous indi- 
viduals of the hive—there being from 15,000 to 40,000 in 
every good colony. It'is possible for a colony to be even 
much more populous than this. (Lubbock says that there 
are often 50,000 worker-ants in a nest.) These are also 
_the smallest bees of the colony, as they measure but little 
more than one-half of an inch in length (Fig. 32). 
The workers—as taught by Schirach, and proved by 
Mlle. Jurine, of Geneva, Switzerland, who, at the request 
of Huber, sought for and found, by aid of her microscope, 
