62 THE BEE AS AN INSECT. [Ch. I. 



days of Aristotle, and which has in our day been rendered 

 familiar even to infant minds through the nursery rhymes 

 of Dr. Watts. 



§ IX. REPRODUCTIVE ECONOMY. 



The fertilisation of the queen and the determination 

 of the sexes of her progeny are two subjects of so much 

 interest that we must make room for some exposition of 

 the discoveries of the past thirty years in relation thereto. 

 What has been already stated on the former of these 

 under the section on " The Drone " consists of facts 

 which were mainly established by Huber ; but within 

 the present generation the great German apiarians have 

 returned to the question, and Dzierzon has set forth some 

 most marvellous deductions, which Baron von Berlepsch 

 has followed up with amplification and further proof. 

 It was found that the queen while in a virgin condition 

 was often capable of depositing eggs, and that these 

 eggs, unlike those of poultry laid under somewhat similar 

 conditions, would hatch equally with others, but they 

 all produced drones. From this arose the question. 

 Whence come the drones after the queen has been fer- 

 tilised ? A fact known from the days of Huber and Riem 

 was by some supposed to settle the difficulty. In many 

 hives there exist what are called " fertile workers " — 

 bees having the female organs sufficiently developed to 

 deposit eggs, but not sufficiently so to receive fecunda- 

 tion ; and as it was found that the eggs of these ful- 



