76 Sex Determined by the Queen. 



and for years. Who that has seen tlie bot-fly dart against 

 the liorse's legs, and as surely leave the tiny yellow egg, can 

 doubt but that insects possess very sensitive oviducts, and can 

 extrude the minute egga jifsi at pleasure. That a queen may 

 force single eggs, at will, past the mouth of the spermatheca, 

 and at the same time add or withhold the sperm-cells, is, I 

 think, without question, true. What gives added force to 

 this view is the fact that other bees, wasps and ants exercise 

 the same volition, and can have no aid from cell-pressure, as 

 all the eggs are laid in receptacles of the same size. As al- 

 ready remarked, the males and workers of Apis dorsata are 

 developed in the same sized cells, while the males of A. 

 Indica are smaller than the workers. The Baron of Berlepsch, 

 worthy to be a friend of Dzierzon, has fully decided the matter. 

 He has shown that old drone cells are as small as new worker- 

 cells, and yet each harbors its own brood. Very small queens, 

 too, make no mistakes. With no drone-cells, the queen will 

 sometimes lay drone-eggsln worker-cells, in which drones will 

 then be reared, and she will, if she must, though with great 

 reluctance, lay worker-eggs in droue-cells. 



Before laying an egg, the queen takes a look into the cell, 

 probably to see if all is right. If the cell contains any honey, 

 pollen, or an egg, she usually passes it by, though when 

 crowded, a queen will sometimes, especially if young, insert 

 two or three eggs in a cell, and sometimes, when in such cases 

 she drops them, the bees show their dislike of waste, and 

 appreciation of good living, by making a breakfast of them. 

 If the queen find the cell to her liking, she turns about, in- 

 serts her abdomen, and in an instant the tiny egg is glued in 

 position (Fig. 15, 6) to the bottom of the cell. 



The queen, when considered in relation to the other bees of 

 the colony, possesses a surprising longevity. It is not imcom- 

 mon for her to attain the age of tlirce years in the full posses- 

 sion of her powers, while queens have been known to do good 

 work for five years. Lubbock has queen ants in his nests that 

 are eight years old, and still they are vigorous layers. Queens, 

 often at the expiration of one, two, three or four years, de- 

 pending on their vigor and excellence, cither cease to be 

 fertile, or else become impotent to lay impregnated eggs — the 

 spermatheca having become emptied of its sperm cells. In 

 such cases the workers usuaDy supersede the queeuj that is, 



