February, '21] franxe: queen fertilization 107 



An investigation of the literature has given to us a list of about thirty 

 references of attempts to control queen bee matings. These attempts 

 are of two general types, first, enclosure of some sort to permit a more 

 or less natural meeting place for a queen and a drone, including various 

 small glass covered boxes on hives, tents and greenhouses, one of the 

 latter being the largest glass building in America ; second, the more or 

 less forcible mating of the queen by bringing a queen and drone together 

 and then forcing out the drone's organs by pressure on the abdomen, or 

 by forcible injection of drone sperms or sperm fluid into the vagina of a 

 virgin queen. 



Considerable interest was directed towards Minnesota in 1914 when 

 Jager and Howard secured one successful mating out of six trials by this 

 last mentioned method, injection of sperms into the vagina of the virgin 

 queen. In 1915 and 1916 however. Prof. Howard and myself secured 

 only three partial successes out of fifty-five attempts and we concluded 

 first that to continue further by that method would necessitate more 

 study of the morphology and functioning of the sexual organs and second, 

 that a different method would be more likely to yield immediate results. 

 I tried a certain kind of a tent in a greenhouse at University FaiTn in 

 1918 and failed to mate the virgin queen used but secured some valuable 

 data. 



The latest and one of the most valuable contributions to the solution 

 of this mating problem appeared in the Journal of Experimental Zoology 

 for August 1920 in the form of two very excellent papers by G. H. Bishop 

 of the Entomology Division, Wisconsin University, on the morphology 

 and probable physiological functioning of the generative organs of the 

 drone and queen. 



It is our opinion that bee culture may have reached its probable 

 development under the present conditions. Our so-called pure Italians 

 seem at best to be something of a mixture. Controlled mating of queen 

 bees will permit actual "pure" races and strains to be produced. When 

 we have them, then with the proper breeding procedure it will be possible 

 to create a honey bee that is uniformly gentle, hardy, long life period, 

 great honey gatherers, resistance to disease, etc. on to our "ideal" bee for 

 Minnesota and the Northwest. 



I feel very confident that someone in the near future will devise some 

 method whereby matings may be controlled. We expect the solution 

 of that problem will give bee culture as great a step forward from its 

 present stage as the invention of the movable frame hive did in 1851. 



Finally we feel at times that if it were permissible and we could "get 

 away with it" as so many seem to be doing just now, we would rob a 

 bank, build a large, high domed green-house similar to the one in Como 



