122 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
gland wherein is stored the male life-essence can 
be opened or closed at the will of the mother-bee, 
or rather, as will be shown, according to circum- 
stances that for the moment involuntarily but 
inexorably guide her. When she is brought to 
the large drone-cell, this gland remains shut, and 
the egg escapes without contact with its contents. 
But at the narrow worker-cells the gland in the 
oviduct is opened, and the egg, in passing, absorbs 
some of its containing germs. Thus only the 
female bee is born of the union of the two 
parents; the male bee is the offspring of mother 
alone. 
Of this primal incident, the parthenogenesis, or 
birth of the fully equipped male from the virgin 
female, little more can be said than that it is a 
well-ascertained fact of nature, exemplified in 
several other insects beside the honey-bee. But 
while we are witnessing the part played in the 
hive by the fecundated queen, with her elaborate 
organism, much is to be noted; and here we really 
get the master-key to a right understanding of the 
whole system of bee-government. It would be an 
anomaly if the highest, most important functions 
of the State had been entrusted solely to the queen, 
whose feeble intelligence renders her, of all others, 
least likely to execute them properly; and we find, 
in fact, that no such reliance is placed on her. 
The worker-bees, who take her in charge on her 
return from her mating-flight, henceforth originate 
