16 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



only into a male. Drone - breeding queens are virgin 

 queens, -wliicli can, of course, lay only unfecundated eggs, 

 and wtose eggs must therefore always hatch, into males. 

 Old queens, when the contents of their spermatheca he- 

 come exhausted, may, and sometimes do, return to the 

 drone-laying condition of virgins. These are not mere 

 theories, hut absolute facts, which have been abundantly 

 demonstrated by anatomical and microscopical investiga- 

 tions. I can speak with perfect certainty on the point, as 

 I happen to be the first Englishman who has been enabled 

 to repeat and verify these investigations. 



" I cannot tell why unfecundated ova in bees should 

 always produce males : I only know that it is so." 



Mr M. Quinby's book is remarkable for this, that, un- 

 like most others on bees, it is not a mere compilation 

 from various authors. He is an open-eyed bee-keeper of 

 great experience, and a vigorous thinker, who can take 

 nothing for granted. Somewhere in his book he shrewdly 

 remarks that his bees do not behave Kke those of other 

 people — meaning thereby that his experience is at variance 

 with many writers. Though I cannot say Amen to some 

 things advanced by Mr Quinby, I have great pleasure in 

 stating that his book is the result of his own researches, 

 and is, in my opinion, calculated to remove foolish notions 

 from the minds of those who do not think for themselves. 



At page 80 of his ' Mysteries of Bee-Keeping' Mr Quin- 

 by says : "I am not anxious to establish a new theory, 

 but to get at facts. If we pretend to understand natural 

 history, it is important that we have it correct ; and if we 

 do not understand, say so, and leave it open for further 

 investigation. It is my opinion that we knoio very little 

 about this point. I wish to induce closer observation, 

 and would recommend no positive decision until all the 

 facts that wUl apply have been examined. Theories differ- 



