Alexander Henry Haliday

“ Yet it is to one of this class,Dzierzon, pastor of Carlsmarkt, in Silesia, that science ultimately owes the discovery of the true physiological relations which rule the generation of the race. The main facts are these :—the Queen bee, or perfect female, before impregnation lays eggs which produce Males only. After impregnation, which takes place but once in the course of her life time, the eggs pro duce male or female larvae according to the sort of cells in which they are laid. ”

“ No form of Parthenogenesis, however, seems more remarkable or instructive than that which is present in connection with the economy of the common honey-bee. Many strange mistakes have prevailed from early times as to the history of the perfect societies of these insects, ruled by laws of instinct which have stimulated the curiosity of man, as much as their productive industry has served his uses and attracted his observation.But it has been only at a comparatively recent period that the true characters of the sexes have been anatomically fixed ”

“ Here the generations of wingless females succeed each other, without access or production of the winged male except at distant periods. How far these periods are subject to rule we have no satisfactory evidence, or that there is any decline of the vitalizing energy of the female organization in the course of generations. In the Psyche helix, as observed by Siebold, the females alone have occurred during seven successive years, and the male insect does not appear to be known with any certainty, if that sex exist in nature. ”