RACES. 
605 
while, amidst a whole catalogue of minor qualities, 
the queen should be distinguished by fecundity ; the 
workers should be, above all, notable honey-gatherers, 
and rapid builders of flat, highly-finished combs, in 
which drone-cells are not over numerous, they should 
winter without difficulty, and be of reasonably mild 
temper : and since the various races differ widely 
amongst themselves, bee-keepers are justly inquiring 
which race or races, and whether a cross or a pure 
bee, will be most likely to realise their ideal. 
Testimony is pretty general in favour of crosses as 
working bees, and this should modify the disappoint- 
ment all must feel in the relative failure, up to the 
present time, of controlled fertilisation. The mis- 
carriage of artificial methods has already come before 
us, at page 323, and further efforts, during another 
season, have only made me feel the more strongly the 
accuracy of the opinion I there ventured to express. 
Artificially fertilised queens may be of great value 
in securing a pedigree stock, but they, I fear, will 
never be of service in heading colonies in actual work, 
since the number of eggs they are capable of fecun- 
dating, unless our methods much improve, will always 
be very restricted. 
Fertilisation in confinement would appear to have 
been occasionally successful, with the most simple 
means, during the last ten years at least, unless we 
must suppose that testimony has been given under a 
total misapprehension. Yet it is evident that the hope 
of progressive apiarists has met disappointment in 
many experiments carefully and expensively under- 
taken. Mr. Simmins has, during two seasons, been 
