FERTILIZATION IN THE HONEY-BEE 255 
1. Bouin’s fluid, cold, or picric acid solution injected through 
the thorax caused no disturbance of the organs with careful 
handling. Cooling in general reduced irritability. 
2. Slow pressure on the sides of the abdomen, especially if the 
drone was cold, often caused bursting of the abdomen between 
the sclerites, sometimes extrusion of the penis without ejacu- 
lation of fluid. 
3. Allowing the drones to fly toward a bright window or 
artificial light and warming them to 40°C. often made pressure 
on the abdomen effective in causing ejaculation, but not always 
was the ejaculation complete. 
4. Weak acid or fixative containing acid injected into the 
thorax, and especially into the abdomen, caused very violent 
contraction of the organs, but often killed the tissues without 
complete ejaculation of the fluids. Injection of these acidified 
reagents into the abdomen through the thorax caused ejaculation 
most frequently. 
5. Sudden and slight pressure applied with the fingers to the 
sides of the abdomen of a warm excited drone generally caused 
a violent extrusion of the penis with complete ejaculation of both 
sperm and mucus. This was accompanied by an intense con- 
traction of the muscles of the abdomen. ‘This reaction of the 
drone was in close conformity with the result to be expected from 
anatomical considerations. The pressure is to be interpreted 
distinctly as a stimulus, and need by no means be sufficiently 
great to forcibly express the penis without a very pronounced 
reaction from the drone itself. 
6. The most complete and most uniform results were obtained 
by holding a drone by the head, allowing him to use his wings 
as in flight until he was intensely excited, and the abdomen 
became distended as in rapid flight ; the head was then deliberately 
pulled from the thorax. The drone reacted with what is believed 
to be substantially a normal orgasm as far as concerns the state 
of the organs of sex. It is inferred that the violent stimulus of 
decapitation under these conditions in some way duplicated the 
stimulus of sexual excitement, as far as the sexual mechanism 
is concerned. 
