THE BEE. 99 



with all that had been previously known to apiarists, 

 the theory of voluntary oviposition, or rather of vo- 

 luntary fertilization, has not been confirmed byobser- 

 vation, but is, as we shall presently show, at variance 

 with the experience of the most accurate observers. 



Huber, who has bestowed as great care upon the 

 consideration of the habits of Bees as Siebold and 

 others have upon their anatomy, states that, although 

 ''the instinct of the queen directs her to deposit 

 worker-eggs in worker-ceUs," yet when he " confined 

 one during her course of laying worker-eggs where 

 she could come at male cells only," she did not com- 

 mence laying drone-eggs, but " she refused to oviposit 

 in them, and, trying in vain to make her escape, they 

 at length dropped from her." 



Now, unless you feel disposed to extend to her 

 that waywardness which is sometimes regarded as cha- 

 racteristic of the fair sex, it would be clear that, if the 

 Queen-bee possessed the power of voluntary fertiliza- 

 tion, she would at once, under the pressing impulse to 

 oviposit as described by Huber, have adapted her 

 eggs to the cells that presented themselves. This, how- 

 ever, she did not do ; but it appears that her instinct 

 prompted her so strongly to lay worker-eggs, that, 

 trying to make her escape from the drone-ceUs, " they 

 dropped from her." 



From a careful consideration of this and other ex- 

 periments, we are disposed to think that, although 

 the queen is enabled by her instinct to find the proper 

 cells for her respective ova, and, as it would appear, 



r2 



