§ X.] RELATION OF SEX TO CELLS. 71 



sex she is further capable of regulating to a large extent 

 the total number of eggs she lays, and thus of modifying 

 the growth of the population with the character of the 

 season and the condition of the colony ; thus a queen 

 that has been transferred from a weak to a strong hive 

 has been know to vary in two or three days from no 

 eggs at all to two thousand a day. She lays during 

 some ten months of the year, suspending the process 

 in November and December. For her first season she 

 lays almost exclusively worker eggs. 



We are told of the occasional occurrence of herma- 

 phrodite bees, half workers and half drones, and the 

 explanation of their existence is given by Von Berlepsch 

 as an incomplete penetration of the shell of the egg, in 

 the act of fertiUsing, by the spermatozoa. Yet another 

 order of individuals has been supposed to exist by some, 

 and they have termed them " black bees," * also " drone 

 mothers;" they are not, however, the veritable "fertile 

 workers " named above, but owe their distinction solely 

 to misconception. They are blacker than the rest, and 

 often with fewer and shorter hairs : but the above author, 

 after ascertaining from Leuckart that there was no anato- 



not be removed without ruining them ; but occasionally when fresh 

 laid they stick to the body of the queen, or even of a worker. 

 Queenless stocks sometimes in their temporary insanity start new 

 queen cells without thinking where the eggs are to come from ; but 

 •these will remain empty unless some fertile worker' tries her skill. 



* This term is also sometimes applied to English bees generally 

 in distinction from the Italians. 



