588 REPORT OP THE COMMISSIONER OE AGRICULTURE. 



In obediejice to your instructions I have continued my experiments in striving to 

 diHcover u practical method by wliicli tlie fecundation of (pieen bees may be con- 

 tToUed. This I have endeavored to accomplisli by two dilTerent methods, in both of 

 which I have been in a dc\Gri-ee successful. During the past summer, however, a 

 drought set in in May, almost with tlie beginning of the breeding season, which was 

 said to be the severest and most protracted known in this locality for twenty-fivo 

 years. No rain fell during eleven weeks, and during the four weeks next succeeding 

 the eleven weeks without rain we had but three hght showers, scarcely sufficient to 

 lay the dust, practically resulting in an unbroken, all-consuming drought fifteen 

 weeks in duration. Under such conditions I found it impossible to bring many of 

 my experimental tests to a successful issue. 



Having discovered last year that it was possible to introduce the drone sperm into 

 the spermatheca of the queen bee during the term of orgasm by artificial means, 

 and that fecundation was practicable by such means, I attempted to perfect a method 

 by which this could be done with ease and certainty. For the purpose of holding 

 the queen bee in position for introducing the drone sperm I made what I call a 

 queen-clamp, which consists of a block of wood 2 mches square and 4 inches long, 

 in one end of which is an opening in size and shape like the uj^per tvro-thirds of a 

 queen-cell, with the small end up. This block is sawed in two in the middle, leav- 

 ing half the cell-shaped opening on either half. Grasping the queen by the wings 

 or thorax I place her in one half of the cell-shaped opening and carefully close the 

 other half over her. I then place a rubber band around the block and stand it on 

 end. This leaves the queen in position, head downward, the lo^^er half of her ab- 

 domen protiTiding, and confined in such a manner that she cannot receive any in- 

 jury. For the purpose of appropriating and depositing the male sperm I used a 

 hyi^odermic syi'inge. I removed the sharp injecting needle, and in it.s place substi- 

 tuted a nozzle having an opening of suliicient size to admit a knitting-needle of 

 medium size. Over this nozzle I slipped a small, smooth tube, drawn to a point so 

 small that the opening in the small end is not more than half as large as that in the 

 nozzle. After selecting the ch-ono I Avish to use, I grasp the head and thorax be- 

 tween the thumb and finger, and by a continued pressure cause him to perform the 

 expulsion act. I then remove the bean in which tlie spermatozoa are massed and 

 squeeze the contents into a very small glass receiver, an eighth of an inch in depth 

 and in diameter. I then add a drop of glycerine diluted with warm rain water, and 

 take up the spermatozoa with the sjringe, using the wide nozzle. I then slip the 

 cap having a fine smooth point over the nozzle and inject the spermatozoa into the 

 vulva of the queen. The queen, which has been held in i^osition by the clamp while 

 the preparations were being made, natTrrally bends the abdomen downward when- 

 ever so coniined. The vulva is easily opened to admit the pomt of the fine nozzle- 

 cap when the abdomen is lifted up straight. Of twenty-seven queens ti-eated by tliis 

 method the last week iu May and the first week in June sis proved to be success- 

 fully fertilized. After that time, although I was persistent in my efforts to succeed 

 and made many and repeated trials. I met with success only occasionally. 



Another method by which I succeeded in fertilizmg a few queens in May, before 

 the bees began killing the drones, was in the manner described in my report of last 

 year. I took a number of young queens from nursery cages, clipped their wings, 

 and introduced them to queenlecs nuclei. "When tliey were seven days old, orgasm 

 being well progressed, I placed them each in turn in a queen-clamp, and, holding 

 them back downwards, I picked drones from a comb taken from a populous hive, 

 and caused them to expel the generative organs, and selecting those in which the 

 contents ap])eared of the color and consistency of albumen, I placed drops of the 

 seminal fluid upon and in the vulva of the queen, wliich were eagerly received. 

 After the mtroduction of the drone sperm these queens were treated by the bees as 

 fertile queens, and in one or two days assumed the appearance of fertile laying 

 queens, and in from three to six days began to lay fecundated eggs. 



The fact that I did occasionally succeed in fecundating queen bees by these meth- 

 ods, which proved upon, trial as prohfic as any queens I had which had been nakir- 

 ally fertilized, queens which I had hatched in an incubator and in nursery cages, 

 wliose \vings I had mercilessly clipped as soon as they had crawled from the cell, 

 a7id which I knew had never lieen upon the wing, seemed to furnish reason to liope 

 that I A\ <v.ild be able to discover a method which would be uniformly successful. 

 Tiie hope of reaching this much-desired result made me persist in the face of dis- 

 couragements incident to experimental work in breeding bees during the prevalence 

 of a protracted drouglit. I am by no means discouraged by the partial success now 

 realized. On the contrary, I am hopeful that under more fa-^orable conditions bet- 

 ter results may be obtained, and until other and untried resources fail I should not 

 feel warranted in abandoning effort. 



Observation and experiment lead me to believe that drone bees differ in degrees 



