cated to
me a very original and exceedingly ingenious theory of his own, which he
thinks will account for all the facts without admitting that the Queen
Bee has any special knowledge or will on the subject. He supposes that
when she deposits her eggs in the worker cells, her body is slightly
compressed by the size of the cells, and that the eggs, as they pass the
spermatheca, receive in this manner, its vivifying influence. On the
contrary, when she is egg-laying in drone cells, this compression cannot
take place, the mouth of the spermatheca is kept closed, and the eggs
are, necessarily, unfecundated. This theory may prove to be true, but at
present, it is encumbered with some difficulties and requires further
investigation, before it can be considered as fully established.

Leaving then the question whether the Queen exercises any volition in
this matter, for the present undecided, I shall state some facts which
occurred in the summer of 1852, in my own Apiary, and shall then
endeavor to relieve, as far as possible, this intricate subject from
some of the difficulties which embarrass it.

In the Autumn of 1852, my assistant found, in one of my hives, a young
Queen, the whole of whose progeny was drones. The colony had been formed
by removing part of the combs containing bees, brood and eggs from
another hive. It had only a few combs, and but a small number of bees.
They raised a new Queen in the manner which will hereafter be
particularly described. This Queen had laid a number of eggs in one of
the combs, and the young bees from some of them were already emerging
from the cells. I perceived, at the first glance, that they were drones.
As there were none but worker cells in the hive, they were reared in
them, and not having space for full development, they were dwarfed in
size, although the bees, in order to give them more room, had pieced out
the cells so as to make them larger than usual! Size excepted, they
appeared as perfect as any other drones.

I was not only struck with the singularity of finding drones reared in
worker cells, but with the equally singular fact that a young Queen, who
at first lays only the eggs of workers, should be laying drone eggs at
all; and at once conjectured that this was a case of a drone-laying,
unimpregnated Queen, as sufficient time had not elapsed for her
impregnation to be unnaturally retarded. I saw the great importance of
taking all necessary precautions to determine this poi