10 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



the pages of the ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' at that time. In 

 that treatise we held that all the eggs laid hy a perfect 

 pregnant queen were alike, and that the hees have the 

 power, or seem to have it, of producing queens, drones, or 

 working hees from them. The Eev. J. G. Wood, whose 

 hook appeared some twelve years later, quotes my language, 

 and adds that "this is a point to which it would be well 

 if scientific men would give renewed attention. All the 

 known facts appear at present to favour Mr PettigreVs 

 statements." 



The question may be asked if nothing has transpired 

 amongst my own bees, during the last twenty-six years, to 

 make me alter that opinion. J^othing has been seen to 

 make me alter the opinion expressed so long ago. Within 

 the last three months, my friend J. W. Woodbury, Esq. 

 of Mount Eadford, Exeter, perhaps the most distinguished 

 bee-historian of this age, finding that I intended to pro- 

 duce a work on bees, very kindly and considerately under- 

 took to discuss the matter in hand privately, with the 

 hope that he woidd thus convince me that the eggs of 

 the honey-bee were not alike, but of difierent sexes. Mr 

 Woodbury has consented to let me insert in this work his 

 letters on this subject. On perusal they will be considered 

 by all to be the product of a mind honest and enlightened 

 — one that has long been open to the influence of reason, 

 analogy, and investigation. Though I am yet to be con- 

 vinced that he is correct in all his conclusions on this 

 subject, I wish the reader to know that I set a very high 

 estimate on the opinion of Mr Woodbury on all matters 

 pertaining to the habits of bees. 



After inserting his letters we shall quote a few paragraphs 

 from an American author, Mr Quinby, who thinks for him- 

 self, and honestly and fairly states what he thinks. Then we 

 shall supplement the whole with a few remarks of our own. 



