28 THE REARING OF QUEEN BEES. 



opening into the oviduct down which the eggs must pass in going from 

 the ovaries to the outside of the bod3^ As each egg is laid, if it is to 

 be fertilized, it receives one spermatozoon from this spermatheca, and 

 the male cell is received into the egg and unites with it. More than 

 one spermatozoon ma}^ adhere to the outside of the egg^ but no normal 

 egg will admit more than one through the micropyle or opening in the 

 end of the egg covering. 



In mating, the queen receives an enormous number of these sperma- 

 tozoa, the number having been estimated at from two to twenty 

 million. Since mating usually occurs but once, it is evident that these 

 spermatozoa must be capable of independent existence for five years 

 or more, for they are not capable of dividing or increasing in number 

 in any way, and the queen is of course unable to produce new ones. 

 Frequent cases have been reported of queens which have mated more 

 than once, and this probably accounts for irregularit}^ in the markings 

 of the offspring of some queens. It is claimed by some that obviously 

 the first mating must have been unsuccessful, but there seems to be 

 no ground for that view, and there is no reason to believe that both 

 matings were not complete. There is no reason whatever, so far as 

 is known, why a queen can not receive a supply of spermatozoa from 

 two drones, and some of the arguments to the contrary, with no basis 

 of observ^ation or knowledge of the anatomy, are not worth\' of con- 

 sideration. Cases have even been reported in which queens which 

 have actually begun to lay have gone out for a second mating; but the 

 evidence is as 3^et meager, and it will be well to wait for further obser- 

 vation before considering such a possibility. Usually, however, a 

 queen takes but one mating flight, and thereafter never again leaves 

 the hive except with a swarm. The ovaries develop to such an extent 

 that flight is impossible, without a previous stoppage in egg la}- ing. 



TESTING aUEENS. 



If the honey producer is rearing queens for his own use, they may 

 be introduced into full colonies as soon as they begin to lay. A fair 

 idea of the value of the queen may be formed from the number and 

 regularity of the eggs laid in the nucleus box, and if later she is found 

 to be mismated, or not up to the standard in egg laying in a full col- 

 ony, she should be discarded. A queen may be tested as to the purity 

 of mating by allowing her brood to emerge in a small nucleus, but no 

 estimate can be made in this way concerning her proliticness. In test- 

 ing for pure mating, however, the entrance should be covered with 

 perforated zinc to prevent the colony from swarming out. If a queen 

 is to be sold as "untested," she may be shipped as soon as she begins 

 to lay after mating. Tested queens are those which have been kept 

 until their progeny show the markings of pure mating. 



