60 PHTSIOLOGT OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



that however mysterious they may appear to us, they are 

 beautifully consistent in the sight of Him whose " under- 

 standing is infinite." 



142. It had long been known that the queen deposits 

 drone-eggs in the large or drone-cells, and worker-eggs in 

 the small or worker-cells, and that she usuallj- makes no 

 mistakes. Dzierzon inferred, therefore, that there was some 

 way in which she was able to decide the sex of the egg be- 

 fore it was laid, and that she must have such a control over 

 the mouth of the seminal sac as to be able to extrude her 

 eggs, allowing them at will to receive or not a portion of its 

 fertilizing contents. In this way he thought she determined 

 their sex, according to the size of the ceUs in which she 

 laid them. 



143. Our lamented friend, Mr. Samuel Wagner, had ad- 

 vanced a highly ingenious theory, which accounted for all 

 the facts, without admitting that the queen had any special 

 knowledge or will on the subject. He supposed that, when 

 she deposited her eggs in the worker-cells, her body was 

 slightly compressed by their size, thus causing the eggs as 

 they passed the spermatheca to receive its vivifying in- 

 fluence. 



144. But this theory was overthrown by the fact that 

 the queen sometimes laj's eggs in cells that are built only to 

 a third of their length, whether worker-cells or drone-cells, 

 and in which no compression can take place. Yet, it is 

 very difficult- to admit that the queen is endowed with a 

 faculty that no other animal possesses, that of knowing and 

 deciding the sex of her progeny beforehand. It seems to 

 us that she must be guided by her instinct like all other 

 beings, for she always begins, in the Spring, by laying in 

 small cells, using large cells only when no others are in reach 

 in the warm part of the hive. Sometimes, however, when 

 she is very heavy with eggs, she lays in drone-cells as she 

 comes to them. Usually it is only when the hive is warm 



