p. 



FALIVEETTO (ISabal chamevops) is fre- 

 quently an excellent yielder of good honey, 

 but only on tlie peninsula of Florida. Tliere 

 are numbers of these trees in the Carolinas 

 aud Georgia, but not in sufficient numbers 

 to be valuable to the bee-keeper. There are 

 two palmettos in Florida which yield honey 

 —viz., the creeping palmetto [Suhal Adan. 

 sonii) and the saw palmetto (Sahal sevenoa)^ 

 also a creeper. The leaves of the latter are 

 very sharp, and serious impediments to 

 walking througli the woods in some parts of 

 Florida, hence the popular name. In some 

 seasons a very heavy honey-yield is obtained 

 from the Florida palmetto, of a quality con- 

 sidered excellent by connoisseurs. 



The palmetto grows to a height of 70 feet 

 or more in Southern Florida, where it suc- 

 ceeds best, and where, too, the landscape is 

 greatly beautifled by many specimens of it. 

 It generally blooms in .June, just before the 

 rainy season, sending out great racemes of 

 creamy- white flowers that form a mass four 

 to seven feet long and two feet wide. 



The honey can scarcely be distinguished 

 from that collected from black mangrove; 

 and it frequently happens that both tlower 

 simultaneously, and the bees, therefore, mix 

 the nectar. 



FARTHENOGEXESIS. In the great 

 majority of cases the sex cells disintegrate 

 unless they unite with the products of the 

 opposite sex of the same species; but in 

 some cases of the animal kingdom cells are 

 given off from the ovary, which, without 

 fertilization, are able to undergo develop- 

 ment. That these cells are true eggs is evi- 

 dent from their origin, appearance, behavior, 

 and fate, while the only difference between 

 these eggs and eggs requiring fertilization 

 is that the former are able to divide and grow 

 without receiving the stimulus given by the 

 male sex cell. To this phenomenon the 

 name " parthenogenesis" is applied. 



The word parthenogenesis (virgin develop- 

 ment) was first used in this sense by Profes- 

 sor V. Siebold in his classic paper, ''Par- 

 thenogenesis in JiCpidoptera and 15ees," in 

 1856. 



However, earlier writers described the 

 phenomenon under various other names. 



In 1745 Charles Jionnet described the par- 

 thenogenetic development of plant-lice; and 

 Prof. Oscar Hertwig, the great German 

 embryologist, designated this work as mark- 

 ing one of the milestones in the history of 

 the science of development. 



Just one hundred years later the Rev. 

 Johannes Dzierzon, of Caiismarkt, Germany, 

 put forth the theory that the drone or male 

 bee is produced from an egg which is not 

 fertilized. This work, published in the 

 Eichstadt Bienenzeitimg, may well be looked 

 on as the starting-point of the theory of 

 parthenogenesis, since it began a very im- 

 portant discussion, and marks the origin of 

 a host of works along similar lines. Dzier- 

 zon based his views on the following facts 

 observed by him and since confirmed by 

 many others: 1. An unmated queen occa- 

 sionally lays eggs, but these produce only 

 drones. 



2. Workers, under certain peculiar circum- 

 stances, lay eggs, but these develop only into 

 drones. Worker bees have never been known 

 to mate. 



3. Old queens may exhaust their supply 

 of spermatozoa received in mating, and 

 thereafter produce only drones. As the 

 supply diminishes they lay an ever increas- 

 ing percentage of drone eggs. 



While this theory is based on the work of 

 Dzierzon, it must not be forgotten that its 

 establishment is due in no small part to the 

 researches oi Professors Leuckart and von 

 Siebold, of Germany. 



The facts brought out in an examination 

 of this work have an important bearing on 

 the practical work of the apiary, and it is 

 necessary for the queen-breeder, at least, 

 to know the application. If, for example, a 

 Cyprian queen is mated to an Italian drone, 

 the resulting workers are a cross between 

 the two races, or Cyprio-Italians. Any 

 queens reared from this colony are also 

 Cyprio-Italians; but the drones of this cross- 

 mated queen are pure Cyprians, the Italian 

 drone in the cross having no influence on 

 the male offspring of the Cyprian mother. 

 If, therefore, but one purely mated queen is 

 obtained, her daughters produce pure drones, 

 regardless of mismating, and the race may 

 be established in an apiary. 



