MALE EGGS LAID BY FEMALE WORKERS. 19 



he found eleven eggs, and in another four — but in what cells 

 those eggs were laid, or what might be the destination of 

 their produce, we are left to the benefit of our own conclu- 

 sions. It is, however, evident from Huber's own showing, 

 that it is only under certain conditions and circumstances, 

 that eggs are generated in the ovarium of the common bee, 

 or in other words, that it is rendered capable of generating 

 them; which conditions and circumstances, however, are not 

 the result of any determined or fixed natural habit or principle 

 of the insect itself, but the entire phenomenon is to be ascribed 

 to the mere accident of a certain modicum of royal jelly being 

 dropped upon them in the state of larvse. Thus, the exist- 

 ence of these ovi-positing workers is not indispensable to a 

 hive, for, if they be the offspring of mere accident, it is a 

 proof that the machinery of the hive would work equally 

 well without them, and consequently, that they can only be 

 looked upon as one of the wild freaks of nature, in which she 

 appears sometimes to delight. 



It is acknowledged by all apiarians, and confirmed by 

 Huber himself, that it is the queen only, who lays those eggs 

 in the hive from which proceed the queen, the drones, and 

 the common bees ; and, had he contented himself with that 

 information, the merit would have been awarded to him of 

 having adhered to the tests of experience ; but, he proceeds 

 to inform us, that it is only the female workers, who lay male 

 eggs, from which we are entitled to draw the inference, that 

 the queen, according to his own showing, does not lay all 

 the eggs in the hive, and consequently, that he was decidedly 

 in error, when he says that both the queen and the female 

 workers lay male eggs. In order, however, to be consistent, 

 and to have given his system one single solid foot to stand 

 upon, Huber should have informed us of the exact issue of 

 these male eggs, for he, surely, could not have meant to im- 

 pose upon us with the fiction, that these eggs produce male 

 bees, which copulate with the female workers ; for, some- 

 b 6 



