Account of the Queen Bee. 65 
‘That the Queen and the common or work- 
ing bees are of the fare fex in the egg, and yet 
that they can rear up bees of every f{pecies be- 
tween them, appears to me to be no more 
wonderful than true *. Whether the addition- 
al matter thrown into the enlarged cell, along 
with the egg, is of a generative or nutritive na- 
ture, I cannot yet pofitively determine, altho’ 
I rather incline to think it is of the former 
kind.—But there are confiderable difficulties 
on both fides. For, if we fay the white matter 
is of a generative quality, then we muft fup- 
pofe that the working bees are males ; although 
it muft appear very unaccountable, that the 
Jame egg fhould be capable of rearing either a 
male or a female, at the option of the working 
bees :—which, however, upon this fuppofition, 
I appears 
* Whether the bees can rear up one of thofe eggs that are 
laid in drone cells, to become a Queen or a common bee; or 
whether they can rear eggs that have been laid in common cells, 
to become drones, is not yet afcertained. This queftion, howe 
ever, might eafily be decided, by putting a piece of comb with 
drone eggs in it, along with 400 common bees ; and, by repeat- 
ing the experiment 6 or 8 times, it might foon be difcovered, 
whether the bées could raife ore of thofe drone eggs to be a 
Queen bee. I rather incline to think, that the eggs laid in 
droné cells cannot be raifed to be any other but drone bees, 
and that thofe laid in common cells ean never be reared to be- 
come dronese 
