136 
QUEEN ORGANS. 
m 
too intricate for us to enter into here), passes on, gra.- 
dually enlarging and acquiring a darker colour; then the 
yolk {vitellus) appears, and when it reaches the bottom 
of the tube it is surrounded by an outer 
skin, or egg-shell {chorion) (Fig. 57, d, e). 
Fig. 56 shows one of the tubes, with the 
gradual development of the egg. We see 
that as the egg grows swellings are pro- 
duced, which gradually increase in size 
as it becomes larger and more fully 
developed. The cells between each 
egg also grow and produce similar swell- 
ings, so that in a laying queen they 
appear somewhat like a pearl necklace. 
Leuckart says egg germs are later in 
making their appearance in the queen 
than are the spermatozoa in the drone. 
Fie did not find them in the insect just 
emerging from the chrysalis, whose 
ovarian tubes are filled with pellucid 
globules, similar to those that precede 
the appearance of the seminal filament 
in the drone testes. 
During the breeding season each fol- 
licle contains more than a dozen white eggs 
(Leuckart*) standing end to end, like the 
beads of a necklace, in various stages of develop- 
ment, of which one or more at the lower end of 
the tube are ripe, so that the number of eggs and 
egg germs must reach from four to five thousand. 
Fig. 56. 
Ovarian 
Follicle. 
* Bienemeitmigi 1S57. 
