56 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
males, or drones! He stated that in several of his hives he 
found drone-laying queens, whose wings were so imperfect 
that they could not fly, and which, on examination, proved 
to be unfecundated. Hence, he concluded that the eggs 
laid by an unimpregnated queen-bee, had sufficient vital- 
ity to produce drones. 
133. Parthenogenesis, meaning ‘‘generation of a virgin,”’ 
is the name given to this faculty of a female, to produce 
offspring without having been fecundated, and is not at all 
rare among insects. 
134. In the Autumn of 1852, our assistant found a young 
queen whose progeny consisted entirely of drones. The 
colony had been formed by removing a few combs contain- 
ing bees, brood, and eggs, from another hive, and had 
raised a new queen. Some eggs were found in one of the 
combs, and young bees were already emerging from the 
cells, all of which were drones. As there were none but 
worker-cells in the hive, they were reared in them, and not 
having space for full development, they were dwarfed in 
size, although the bees had pieced the cells to give more 
room to their occupants. 
We were not only surprised to find drones reared in 
worker-cells, but equally so that a young queen, who at 
first lays only the eggs of workers, should be laying 
drone-eggs, and at once conjectured that this was a case of 
an unimpregnated drone-laying queen, sufficient time not 
having elapsed for her impregnation to be unnaturally re- 
tarded. All necessary precautions were taken to determine 
this point. The queen was removed from the hive, and 
although her wings appeared to be perfect, she could not 
fly. It seemed probable, therefore, that she had never been 
able to leave the hive for impregnation. 
135. To settle the question beyond the possibility of 
doubt. we submitted this queen to Professor Leidy for mi- 
croscopic examination. The following is an extract from 
