The fertilisation of the queen and the determination of the sexes of her progeny are two subjects of so much interest that we must make room for some exposition of the discoveries of the past thirty years in relation thereto. What has been already stated on the former of these under the section on "The Drone" consists of facts which were mainly established by Huber; but within the present generation the great German apiarians have returned to the question, and Dzierzon has set forth some most marvellous deductions, which Baron von Berlepsch has followed up with amplification and further proof. It was found that the queen while in a virgin condition was often capable of depositing eggs, and that these eggs, unlike those of poultry laid under somewhat similar conditions, would hatch equally with others, but they _all produced drones_. From this arose the question. Whence come the drones _after_ the queen has been fertilised? A fact known from the days of Huber and Riem was by some supposed to settle the difficulty. In many hives there exist what are called "fertile workers"--bees having the female organs sufficiently developed to deposit eggs, but not sufficiently so to receive fecundation; and as it was found that the eggs of these fulfilled the conditions required, and invariably produced drone bees, the theory was erected that these fertile workers were the regular producers of that sex. But this plausible solution of the problem did not stand examination. Every fertile queen does habitually lay eggs in drone cells, and from those eggs drones are uniformly developed. Dissection and microscopic analysis had therefore to be resorted to, and the course of investigation commenced by Swammerdam and pursued by Mlle. Jurine was now pushed to a much further extent. Proceeding from the two ovaries of the queen there are two canals, called oviducts, which presently unite, and immediately beyond their point of juncture is a small globular receptacle which is called the spermatheca. With fertile queens it was found that this appendage is permanently occupied by a fluid identical with that in the reproductive organs of the drones, and that as such it abounds in spermatozoa; while with a virgin queen the fluid is totally destitute of these, and is wholly different in appearance, being thin and transparent. From this discovery the conclusion followed that each egg, as it passes down the oviduct and over the mouth of the spermatheca, may either receive fecundation or not, according as the queen's own will or some other circumstance shall determine. Dzierzon accordingly propounded as the apparent, though still only hypothetical, solution of the enigma, what is known as the doctrine of parthenogenesis or virgin breeding--the law that life is imparted by the mother independently, and that every egg as originally developed in her ovaries is of the male sex, but that whenever fertilised with the male fluid it becomes transformed into a female!