ORGANS OF THE QUEEN. 237 



after they were laid, after the fashion of fishes. 

 Huber, assured of the falsity of the idea, shut up 

 all the drones of a hive, letting the mother fly, and 

 found that she became fertile. We may smile at 

 these ancient blunders, but really mistakes as grave 

 and less excusable now obtain. It is even yet 

 asserted by some, as the echo of a bold guess made 

 long ago, by an American apiarist of just repute, 

 though but little acquainted with scientific matters, 

 that the narrower cells in which worker bees are 

 raised, by pressing upon the abdomen of the queen, 

 were the effective agents for forcing out the sper- 

 matozoa, and so causing the eggs to be fertilised. 

 This notion, so repellent from its bald crudity, is 

 shown to be utterly without foundation. Not only 

 do queens lay worker eggs in cells whose sides 

 are only commenced, so that pressure cannot be 

 exerted, but experiment proves that the sex is 

 determined according to the needs of the colony. 

 Although the queen, if left in undisturbed possession 

 of the combs the workers have built, will select the 

 cells, and lay eggs appropriate to their sizes, she 

 will, if provided with one kind only, deposit in part 

 eggs of a sex opposite to that for which the cells 

 are suitable; for, if a hive be filled with drone comb, 

 workers will be raised in it. Fertilisation, now that 

 we have so far conquered its modus operandi, is 

 seen to be absolutely under control, and the out- 

 come of a beautiful and marvellous mechanism. 



But the egg, having been fertilised, may, accord- 

 ing to subsequent treatment, yield either worker or 

 queen. To be the latter is rarely its destiny, and so 



