1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



STRUCTURAL PECULIARITIES IN AN ABNORMAL QUEEN BEE. 

 BY J. A. NELSON, PH.D. 



In May of the present year. (1911) the Bureau of Entomology 

 received through the kindness of The A. I. Root Company, Medina. 

 Ohio, an abnormal queen bee, together with the cell from which 

 she emerged. These had been originally sent to the company by the 

 Rev. A. Francois, Parish Priest of Grand Bay, B. W. I. Father 

 Francois also sent a letter containing the following data : The queen 

 was hatched in 18 days after the colony became queenless, the cell 

 being formed on drone comb. She was very active and Father 

 Francois mistook her for a hermaphrodite, "half queen and half 

 drone." 



» 



The queen when received was alive, and appeared to be in good 

 condition. It was planned to introduce her into a colony to test 

 her fertility, but she perished by an accident before this could be 

 carried out. A careful examination of the exterior of the dead queen 

 showed nothing abnormal or unusual in the structure of the head, 

 thorax, or appendages. The abdomen, however, was of a very 

 unusual shape. Instead of the long tapering conical form charac- 

 teristic of the normal queen bee (fig. 1 D), it was in this case broadly 

 ovate, as fig. 1 A and C show. Moreover, the three terminal segments 

 were bent strongly ventrad, so that the outline of the abdomen 

 suggests that of the drone, having a blunt apex, and doubtless was 

 the cause of Father Francois' supposition that this bee was her- 

 maphroditic. A more careful examination of the abdomen disclosed 

 further abnormalities. In correlation with the unusual breadth of 

 the abdomen, the sternites of the 5th and 6th segments are much 

 broader than in the normal queen (fig. 1C). They are, moreover, 

 somewhat asymmetrical, as is also the sternite of the 4th segment, 

 although to a slighter degree. Most modified of all is the sternite 

 of the 7th segment. In the normal queen (fig. 1 D) this has approxi- 

 mately the outline of an isosceles triangle with a small notch at its 

 caudal apex. In the abnormal queen (fig. 1 C) this plate is so much 

 reduced by shortening in the longitudinal axis that it is almost com- 

 pletely covered and concealed by the sternite of the 6th segment. 



