We have before alluded to the very remarkable phenomenon occasionally occurring to the great annoyance of the bee-keeper, namely, the development in a worker of the power of laying eggs, which eggs will produce nothing but drones, so that the population of the hive dwindles, and becomes extinct. Various suggestions have been made as to the reason of this faculty appearing. A very plausible idea is that some of the "royal jelly" is occasionally, and possibly by mistake, given to a larva in the neighbourhood of a queen-cell, and this stimulating food produces a partial development of laying power. A second possibility is that sometimes a worker-larva in too forward a condition is transferred to a queen-cell, and owing to the difference of treatment not having been begun early enough, an imperfect and nondescript kind of bee results. Some corroboration of this may perhaps be found in a curious fact, which has been several times noted, and published in the _British Bee-Journal_, viz., the finding of workers hatched in queen-cells. It would be difficult to imagine such an abnormal event, unless unusual circumstances had occurred to the young larva. The birth of a fertile worker in a hive is a great misfortune; for, not merely will the population diminish, and at length altogether fail, from the production of drone-brood only, but, as it is impossible to distinguish the offending worker, it is difficult to get rid of her. It has been recommended, on the discovery that she exists, to amalgamate the stock with another having a queen. This may answer, but there is a danger that when the battle comes to be fought between the actual sovereign and the fertile worker, who will try to maintain her prerogative, the latter, as the more active, and as possessed of a more formidable sting, may prove victorious. A safer plan, therefore, is to turn out the whole stock from their hive, comb by comb, if the bar-frame system is used, and allow them to return to the old place where the cleared combs may be put to receive them. The fertile worker, never having left the colony, will not know her way back, and so will be happily got rid of, and will probably perish. Her place must, of course, be supplied by an introduced queen, or the stock must be united with another.