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:--