Workers are Undeveloped Females. 109 



above theory. Langstroth and Berlepsch thought that 

 these bees, while larvae, were fed, though too sparingly, 

 with the royal aliment, by bees in need of a queen, and 

 hence the accelerated development. As already stated, the 

 queen larva is fed different and more abundant food than 

 is the worker, and hence her accelerated and varied devel- 

 opment. Is it not possible that these fertile workers 



Fig. 33. Fig 



Ovaries of Worker Bee. 



Orarica of Fertile Worlgr, 



receive an excess of food as larvae? Again we have seen 

 that fertile workers occur in hopelessly queenless colonies; 

 and that queens are fed by the workers. May it not be 

 that colonies hopelessly queenless take to feeding some 

 special workers the chyle, and thus arise the fertile workers. 

 These are interesting inquiries that await solution. The 

 generative organs are ver^' sensitive, and exceedingly sus- 

 ceptible to impressions, and we may yet have much to 

 learn as to the delicate forces which will move them to 

 growth and activity. Though these fertile workers are a 

 poor substitute for a queen, as they are incapable of pro- 

 ducing any bees but drones, and are surely the harbingers 

 of death and extinction to the colony, yet they seem to 

 satisfy the workers, for often the latter will not brook 

 the presence of a queen when a fertile worker is in the 

 hive, frequently will not suffer the existence in the hive of 

 a queen-cell, even though capped. They seem to be satis- 

 fied, though they have very slight reason to be so. These 

 fertile workers lay indifferently in large or small cells — 

 often place several eggs in a single cell, and show theii 



