APIS. 
335 
a new queen is produced upon one being- supplied with 
a certain nutriment that developes the capacity that 
would remain inert and abortive, were it not thus pro¬ 
moted from its primary state. It may be questioned 
whether the eggs deposited by the queen in the royal 
cells are other than neuter eggs, their subsequent nature 
being changed by the different quality of the sustenance 
they are fed with when hatched, as is the case in the 
above noticed defection of a queen. This then would 
limit the queen’s eggs to the eggs of neuters and of 
drones, thus further corroborating the idea of the exis¬ 
tence of but two sexes. 
I have stated above the supposition that the queen’s 
office may be restricted to the laying of eggs, but it must 
be inferred that it has a wider compass, and possibly com¬ 
prises some administrative function in the regulation of 
the hive, from the circumstance that with her loss the 
entire community loses its self-possession and self-con¬ 
trol. Labour then ceases and the hive becomes the scene 
of turmoil and confusion, and unless the loss be repaired 
in the way named above, which their instinct teaches 
them to adopt, if any eggs have been already deposited, or 
if supplied by the surreptitious introduction of another 
queen which they immediately raise to their superinten¬ 
dency, paying her the same deference they had done to 
their lost monarch, or would do to a legitimately native 
birth, it disperses and destroys the community. Such a 
loss in its natural course must necessarily, to be effec¬ 
tively repaired, take place in the interval after the laying 
of the drones’ eggs, and before those of the queens are 
deposited, for otherwise she would remain unimpreg¬ 
nated. Having thus shown reasons for supposing that 
the hive actually contains but two sexes, and having also 
