THE BRIDE-WIDOW 125 



sarily straightened, and this may produce pressure 

 on the fecundating gland, resulting in the im- 

 pregnation of the egg. But in the wider drone- 

 cell no such constricted posture is needful, and the 

 egg may therefore pass untouched by the fructify- 

 ing germ. If this version of the matter be ac- 

 cepted, the natural inference is that either the 

 mother-bee is incapable of laying female eggs in 

 the cells specially constructed for raising queens — 

 these being the largest of all, — or that there is 

 something in the peculiar curve of the cell-cup 

 which compels her to straighten her body in the 

 act, and so brings about the same posture as with 

 the narrow worker-cells. 



This theory, although at present the most plau- 

 sible, has received, it is true, little confirmation in 

 fact. No one, apparently, has ever seen the 

 mother-bee lay in a queen-cell, nor has the trans- 

 portation thither of a worker-egg by the bees 

 actually been witnessed. To cling to the old idea 

 of the supremacy of the queen-bee, giving her the 

 power and ability of a despotic, all-wise sovereign, 

 would, of course, set this and many other vexed 

 questions at rest. Nothing, however marvellous, 

 would be too much to expect of her. But the 

 farther the student of bee-life goes in his absorbing 

 subject, the more^impossible the old notion seems. 

 Proof comes to him with every hour that the 

 mother-bee is virtually a servant, and never a ruler 

 in the hive ; and just as assured testimony reaches 



