. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. 192 THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. [March 1, 1877. ized queen, and of the (so-called) fertile worker, become drone bees (if tbey are permitted to hatch), whether deposited in drone or worker cells, whereas the eggs of a queen that has been duly mated become (as a rule) drones or workers according to the cells in which they have been deposited—, all the eggs deposited in drone cells become drone bees, while all those placed in worker cells become workers. This, as we have said, is the rule, and the exceptions are that sometimes the worker-bee
. British bee journal & bee-keepers adviser. Bees. 192 THE BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. [March 1, 1877. ized queen, and of the (so-called) fertile worker, become drone bees (if tbey are permitted to hatch), whether deposited in drone or worker cells, whereas the eggs of a queen that has been duly mated become (as a rule) drones or workers according to the cells in which they have been deposited—, all the eggs deposited in drone cells become drone bees, while all those placed in worker cells become workers. This, as we have said, is the rule, and the exceptions are that sometimes the worker-bees effect a change in the eggs which would have become sister-workers, and convert them into queen-bees ; and occasionally an egg, although deposited in a worker cell, becomes a veritable drone. To account for the wonderful rule above mentioned, various experiments, and the dis- section of many queens, took place, and it was. discovered that the fertilising influence of the drone does not affect the ovaries (A) of the queen, but only a small sac, called the sperma- theca (C), situate on the side of the oviduct (D), and communicating therewith, which sac is, after the mating, found to be filled with life- giving spermatozoids. The Dzierzon theory, then, is that the eggs that pass down the ovi- duct (D) without contact with the spermatheca (C) receive none of its vivifying influence, and produce drones only, as they would had they been deposited by a virgin queen or a fertile worker, and that those eggs, which in passing are brought into contact with C, receive addi- tional vitality, and become capable of evolution into workers or transformation into queens. Dzierzon found, as before stated, that all the eggs deposited in worker and drone cells became worker and drone bees respectively, and therefore thought that the queen had the power of suiting, at will, the action of the spermatheca to the purpose of the cell into which she was about to deposit the egg, and thus governed and
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