§ X. RELATION OF SEX TO CELLS.
There remains the very interesting question of the connection between sex and cells, which, if it be not paradoxical to say so, is as a general rule invariable; that is to say, when both the queen and the hive are in a normal condition, the eggs laid in each class of cells produce respectively workers and drones without failure or exception. But in abnormal circumstances, as with a drone-breeding queen, the law does not hold, and drones of a diminished size are hatched from worker cells, though the bees, on discovering the state of things, do their best by subsequent elongation to adapt the cradles to their unexpected occupants. Such is the explanation of the existence of "small drones;" but workers hatched in drone cells do not appear to be in any way peculiar. In regard then to the main fact we are confronted with the question, Has the queen a knowledge, at the moment of laying, of the gender of each particular egg? Rather, it would seem, she has the power of making it what gender she pleases by compressing her spermatheca or not at the instant of its passing down her oviduct. We must however refer to an ingenious theory to the contrary, quoted by Langstroth as started by his friend the late Mr. Wagner of Philadelphia, and which has been approved by many in this country and Germany also. It is to the effect that not the queen's own will, but the narrow limits of the worker cells, administer the above compression, while the more spacious drone cells allow her body to be inserted without such effect. Von Berlepsch however, it is safe to say, has absolutely demolished this mechanical explanation; and as some recent writers have quoted the "Wagner theory" with approval, it may be best to give the German observer's principal objections in his own words:—
"This explanation is thoroughly untenable; for—(a) perfectly new worker cells are fully as wide as very old drone cells in which breeding has taken place many times, and yet, as found by experience, female bees come from the former and males from the latter, (b) Many queens are of a strikingly slender form, some of them occasionally so small that they can scarcely be distinguished from workers, and yet they have no proclivity to drone-laying—which must however have been the case if the narrow cell effected the fertilisation of the egg by pressure.... (c) A queen lays even in cells that are scarcely begun, with which, therefore, the proportion of the diameter to the thickness of her body can exercise no influence at all, and yet drones come forth from the drone cells and workers from the worker cells. (d) If there are no drone cells at her command, and the stock is in want of drones, the queen lays male eggs in worker cells, and drones hatch from them.... (i) A fertile queen, if introduced with her colony into a hive containing nothing but drone comb, would naturally [on such hypothesis] furnish the drone cells with eggs as she would worker cells, and make no difficulty about it. But she does make a very great difficulty—for a long time she lays no eggs in the cells at all, but lets them drop, or tries to escape abroad with her entire colony. But at last she does lay in the drone cells, and what ensues? Ordinary worker bees come forth." Instances follow of experiments decisively proving this. It is only fair, however, to add that Mr. Wagner's theory does not necessarily degrade the monarch of the hive into "a mere egg-laying machine," as Von Berlepsch regards it in some of his arguments, for she might still exhibit intelligence in deciding which cells to lay in, even if the determination of the sex of the egg rested finally with the cell which she had chosen.
The queen then exercises a personal control over each egg as she deposits it, but, unless interfered with by irregular circumstances, she adapts her will to the cells and chooses the cells according to the requirements of the hive. But when both drones and workers are in requisition she lays her eggs in each class of cells just as she comes to them, as to which fact the Baron gives abundant evidence, having in one instance observed a queen make no fewer than five changes in a day from worker to drone cells or vice versa without any intermission. Inconsistent as it may appear, she also herself deposits in royal cells the eggs which are to hatch into her rivals—that is, when these cells have been prepared with a view to swarming;—for the preponderance of argument goes against the belief that eggs are ever removed into these by the workers.[13] In addition to determining the sex she is further capable of regulating to a large extent the total number of eggs she lays, and thus of modifying the growth of the population with the character of the season and the condition of the colony; thus a queen that has been transferred from a weak to a strong hive has been know to vary in two or three days from no eggs at all to two thousand a day. She lays during some ten months of the year, suspending the process in November and December. For her first season she lays almost exclusively worker eggs.
[13] The eggs when once deposited adhere to the cells and could not be removed without ruining them; but occasionally when fresh laid they stick to the body of the queen, or even of a worker. Queenless stocks sometimes in their temporary insanity start new queen cells without thinking where the eggs are to come from; but these will remain empty unless some fertile worker' tries her skill.
We are told of the occasional occurrence of hermaphrodite bees, half workers and half drones, and the explanation of their existence is given by Von Berlepsch as an incomplete penetration of the shell of the egg, in the act of fertilising, by the spermatozoa. Yet another order of individuals has been supposed to exist by some, and they have termed them "black bees,"[14] also "drone mothers;" they are not, however, the veritable "fertile workers" named above, but owe their distinction solely to misconception. They are blacker than the rest, and often with fewer and shorter hairs: but the above author, after ascertaining from Leuckart that there was no anatomical difference, proved by experiments that their colour was caused simply by smearing with honey, or else was the effect of stifling or of fright, and that the loss of hairs was owing to nothing more than having crept repeatedly through confined entrance-holes! Similarly Dzierzon: "The black colour is one purely accidental, produced through heating, rubbing against sides, biting, smearing, licking, and the like. As a rule, the glossy black bees are robbers which have been pursuing their trade for some considerable time."
[14] This term is also sometimes applied to English bees generally in distinction from the Italians.