50 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



is rare; whilst, on the other hand, aquatic animals, with the 

 fishes especially so, it is the egg that is fecundated, and that, 

 too, in most cases, after extrusion. 



Here I propose to deal with the queen from the extrusion of 

 the egg to the mature and perfect insect ; nay, in one sense it will 

 be necessary for me to deal with the egg prior to extrusion. We 

 speak of the inmates of the hive as the queen, drones, and workers. 

 There is nothing wrong in it. We also refer to the queen as having 

 the power to lay eggs that will produce these three beings. Drones 

 are male bees; the queen and workers females. The former has 

 power to reproduce her species; the latter have not that power. 

 Nevertheless, these conditions may be, and frequently are, changed 

 — sometimes by the act of the bees themselves, and at .other times 

 artifically; that is, at a certain stage in the development of the 

 egg, the queen structure may be advanced or checked, so that the 

 egg shall produce a working bee or a queen, as may be required, 

 either by the bees themselves or by the bee master. Note this 

 transposition for a reproductive female or for a non-productive 

 female takes place after the egg has been deposited in the cell 

 by the queen — that is, the change or transition does not take place 

 within the ovary. In the case of the production of the drone, the 

 sexual character of the inmate of the egg is fixed within the ovary. 

 The spermatheca of ia virgin queen is void of female life-germs ; but, 

 notwithstanding this, the ovary is sur-charged with embyro ovules. 

 Each one of these contain a male germ, and each one, if laid by 

 the queen in the same state as it is whilst in the ovary, would pro- 

 duce a male bee. It is immaterial as to where the queen deposits 

 that egg either in a drone, a worker, or a queen cell, the result 

 of development is fixed — it can hatch out nothing but a drone, a 

 perfect male bee. But, for the production of a female bee, all the 

 conditions for the production of the male are followed by Nature 

 up to one point, when under certain conditions the sexual charac- 

 ter of the egg changes. This sexual change takes place whilst the 

 egg is in transition from the ovary to extrusion, during its passage 

 through the oviducts of the mother bee. The egg is an elongated 

 sac, one end of which is much larger than the other ; in the larger 

 end there is an aperture (micropyle). "This aperture is extremely 

 minute ; but the minuteness of the opening does not prevent its 

 being continued through the underlying egg membranes, and giving 

 an opportunity of entrance to the spermatozoon (the life germa 

 contained in the spermatheca), whose rhythmic movements, a3 



