en.

I was completely at a loss to account for this, as the bees having an
unimpregnated drone-laying Queen, ought not to have had a single female
egg from which they could rear a Queen.

At first I imagined that they might have _stolen_ it from another hive,
but when I opened this cell, it contained, instead of a queen, _a dead
drone_!

I then remembered that Huber has described the same mistake on the part
of some of his bees. At the base of this cell, was an extraordinary
quantity of the peculiar jelly or paste, which is fed to the young that
are to be transformed into queens. The poor bees in their desperation,
appear to have dosed the unfortunate drone to death: as though they
expected by such liberal feeding, to produce some hopeful change in his
sexual organization!

It appears to me that these facts constitute all the links in a perfect
chain, and demonstrate beyond the possibility of doubt, that
unfecundated queens are not only capable of laying eggs, (this would be
no more remarkable than the same occurrence in a hen,) but that these
eggs are possessed of sufficient vitality to produce drones. Aristotle,
who flourished before the Christian era, had noticed that there was no
difference in appearance, between the eggs producing drones and those
producing workers; and he states that drones only are produced in hives
which have no queen; of course the eggs producing them, were laid by
fertile workers. Having now the aid of powerful microscopes, we are
still unable to detect the slightest difference in size or appearance in
the eggs, and this is precisely what we should expect if the same egg
will produce either a worker or a drone, according as it is or is not
impregnated. The theory which I propose, will, I think, perfectly
harmonize with all the observed facts on this subject.

I believe that after fecundation has been delayed for about three weeks,
the mouth of the spermatheca becomes permanently closed, so that
impregnation can no longer be effected; just as the parts of a flower,
after a certain time, wither and shut up, and the plant is incapable of
fructification. The fertile drone-laying workers, are in my opinion,
physically incapable of being impregnated. However strange it may
appear, or even improbable, that an unimpregnated egg can give birth to
a living being, or that the sex can be dependent on impregnation, we are
not at liberty to reject facts, because we cannot comprehend the reasons
of the