INSTINCT 209 



Loss of queen, when a worker larva from one to four 

 days old will be surrounded by a cell; inability of a 

 queen to lay impregnated eggs, her spermatheca hav- 

 ing become emptied; great number of worker-bees 

 in the hive; restricted quarters; the queen not hav- 

 ing place to deposit eggs, or the workers little or no 

 room to store honey; or lack of ventilation, so that 

 the hive becomes too close. These last three condi- 

 tions are most likely to occur at times of great honey 

 secretion." * 



The workers gather and prepare or secrete several 

 different substances — wax, propolis, pollen, honey 

 and royal jelly. 



In the above facts we see a combination of many 

 most remarkable instincts and peculiarities of struc- 

 ture which look to the good of the community. How 

 could they have been produced by evolution? The 

 workers are sterile and leave no offspring, conse- 

 quently their instincts cannot be inherited from bees 

 of their own class. Each generation of workers is 

 isolated from all succeeding generations. 



The queens and drones do not possess the instincts 

 of the workers. Shall we assume that they formerly 

 possessed them, but that they have lost them by disuse 

 or otherwise? 



The theory of evolution necessarily assumes that at 

 some former time only the sexually perfect females 

 and males existed in a community of bees, and that 

 the neuters were evolved from the fertile females. 



It is evident that the neuters and queens now pos- 

 sess certain instincts which could never have belonged 

 to either the males or perfect females. 



The following are, I think, examples of instincts 

 which could not have originated until after the work- 

 ers were evolved as a distinct class. 

 14 * Bee-Keeper's Guide, p. 69. 



