THE BRIDE-WIDOW 125 
sarily straightened, and this may produce pressure’ 
on the fecundating gland, resulting in the im-+ 
pregnation of the egg. But in the wider drone-: 
cell no such constricted posture is needful, and the 
egg may therefore pass untouched by the fructify- 
ing germ. If this version of the matter be ac- 
cepted, the natural inference is that either the 
mother-bee is incapable of laying female eggs in 
the cells specially constructed for raising queens— 
these being the largest of all,—or that there is 
something in the peculiar curve of the cell-cup 
which compels her to straighten her body in the 
act, and so brings about the same posture as with 
the narrow worker-cells, 
\ This theory, although at present the most plau- 
ible, has received, it is true, little confirmation in 
fact. No one, apparently, has ever seen the 
mother-bee lay in a queen-cell, nor has the trans- 
portation thither of a worker-egg by the bees 
actually been witnessed. To cling to the old idea 
of the supremacy of the queen-bee, giving her the 
power and ability of a despotic, all-wise sovereign, 
would, of course, set this and many other. vexed 
questions at rest. Nothing, however marvellous, 
would be too much to expect of her. But the 
farther the student of bee-life goes in his absorbing 
subject, the more.impossible the old notion seems. 
Proof comes to him with every hour that the 
mother-bee is virtually a servant, and never a ruler 
in the hive ; and just as assured testimony reaches 
