The Matinq Process in the Honev &ee

摘要

The mating process in Apis mellifera is miraculous and mysterious. The 'miraculous' description of the process is a subjective view which strictly has no place in an article which is intended to review the facts and observations which have been accumulated over the past 200 years since the pioneering work of Francis Huber (1750-1831 and Johann Dzierzon (1811-1906). But the facts as they have been revealed are amazing, even astounding for me even beyond the "miraculous", with its implication of supernatural intervention, just because they are in fact real. In biological evolution fact is indeed often stranger than fiction and mysterious only because observations are difficult to comprehend.