PHYSIOLObT. 60 



size of the hive affects the number of bees that it may be 

 expected to produce. 



The workers, (as has been already stated,) are all females 

 whose ovaries are too imperfectly developed to admit of 

 their laying eggs. For a long time, they were regarded as 

 neither males nor females, and were called Neuters ; but 

 more careful microscopic examinations have enabled us to 

 detect the rudiments of their ovaries, and thus to determine 

 their sex. The accuracy of these examinations has been 

 verified by the well-known facts respecting/erii'Ze workers. 



Kiem, a German Apiarian, firsi discovered that workers 

 semetimes lay eggs. Huber, in the course of his investiga- 

 tions on this subject, ascertained that such workers were 

 raised in hives that had lost their queen, and in the vicinity 

 of the royal cells in which young queens were being reared. 

 He conjectured that they received accidentally, a small por- 

 tion of the peculiar food of these infant queens, and in this 

 way, be accounted for their reproductive organs being more 

 developed than those of other workers. Workers reared in 

 such hives, are in close proximity to the young queens, and 

 there is certainly much probability that some of the royal 

 jelly may be accidentally dropped into their cells ; as, in 

 these hives, the queen cells when first commenced are par- 

 allel to the horizon, instead of being perpendicular to it, as 

 they are in other hives. I do not feel confident, however, 

 that they are not sometimes bred in hives which have not 

 ,lost their queen. The kind of eggs laid by these fertile 

 workers, has already been noticed. Such workers are sel- 

 dom tolerated in hives containing a fertile, healthy queen, 

 though instances of this kind have been known to occur. 

 The worker is much smaller than either the queen or the 

 drone.* It is furnished with a tongue or proboscis, of the 



*This work being intended chiefly for practical purposes, I have 



