DIFFERENT GENERATIONS OF BEES. 133 



his talent and ability, he will not be able to extricate himself 

 from the dilemma in which he will find himself involved : for 

 surely he will not be so bold as to assert that the difference in 

 the make of the egg is produced by the mere power and 

 co-operation of the common bees, and that no distinct form 

 nor property was imparted to it, whilst in the ovarium of the 

 queen ? The solution of this question is of considerable 

 importance in the prosecution and adjustment of the present 

 inquiry ; for on its confirmation or refutation must depend a 

 great portion of the validity of the long-disputed theory of 

 the common bees being able to generate a queen from any 

 particular egg selected by them for that purpose. Mr. 

 Dunbar himself admits that the queen lays two kinds of eggs; 

 and on taking into consideration the general principles of 

 his theory, it is a very bold admission : for are we thence to 

 infer, that, let the egg which the queen may have just laid 

 be of whatever kind it may, the common bees are invested 

 with the power of altering at their pleasure its distinctive 

 character, and by some secret and inexplicable process impart- 

 ing to the embryo a different nature than that which actually 

 existed in it at the moment of its emission from the ovarium 

 of the queen ? If we in this respect confront the two systems 

 of Dunbar and Huber, into what a labyrinth of perplexity 

 and contradiction do we find ourselves entangled. Mr. 

 Dunbar is satisfied with the existence of one kind of common 

 bee in the hive ; not so, however, was Huber, for as we have 

 already observed, according to his creative fancy, we have 

 five kinds of common bees, — viz. nurse-bees, wax-makers, 

 wax-workers, royal jelly-makers, and lastly, the unfortunate 

 black bees. How, then, will Mr. Dunbar account for the 

 generation of these five kinds of common bees ? Huber, the 

 inventor of the system, cannot assist him out of the diffi- 

 culty, for, according to his observation, the queen lays only 

 three kinds of eggs, from one of which originate the common 

 bees ; but, nevertheless, these common bees have five dis- 



