re
workers; we had also to continue the experiment, and observe whether any
would produce eggs. Thus we examined the cells for several days, and
soon observed new laid eggs, from which the worms of drones came at the
proper time. My assistant held in his hands the bees that produced them;
and as he was perfectly certain they were common ones, it is proved that
there are sometimes fertile workers in hives.

Having ascertained M. Schirach's discovery, by so decisive an
experiment, we replaced all the bees examined, in very thin glass hives,
being only eighteen lines thick, and capable of containing but a single
row of combs, and thus were extremely favourable to the observer. We
thought, by strictly persisting to watch the bees, we might surprise a
fertile one in the act of laying, seize and dissect her. This we were
desirous of doing, for the purpose of comparing her ovaries with those
of queens, and to ascertain the difference. At length, on the eighth of
September, we had the good fortune to succeed.

A bee appeared in the position of a female laying. Before she had time
to leave the cell, we suddenly opened the hive and seized her. She
presented all the external characteristics of common bees; the only
difference we could recognise, and that was a very slight one, consisted
in the belly seeming less and more slender than that of workers. On
dissection, her ovaries were found more fragile, smaller and composed of
fewer oviducts than the ovaries of queens. The filaments containing the
eggs were extremely fine, and exhibited swellings at equal distances. We
counted eleven eggs of sensible size, some of which appeared ripe for
laying. This ovary was double like that of queens.

On the ninth of September, we seized another fertile worker the instant
she laid, and dissected her. The ovary was still less expanded than that
of the preceding bee, and only four eggs had attained maturity. My
assistant extracted one from the oviducts, and succeeded in fixing it by
an end on a glass slider. We may take this opportunity of remarking,
that it is in the oviducts themselves the eggs are imbued with the
viscous liquid, with which they are produced, and not in passing through
the spherical sac as Swammerdam believed. During the remainder of this
month, we found ten fertile workers in the same hives, and dissected
them all. In most, the ovaries were easily distinguished, but in some we
could not discern the faintest traces of them. In