272 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



In examining with a microscope a 

 young queen recently mated, the sper- 

 matheca will be found completely full 

 of spermatozoa. If an older one is ex- 

 amined, the spermatheca will not be 

 so full. The older the queen the less 

 is the amount or spermatozoa found, 

 and in queens three or four years old 

 the spermatheca eventually becomes 

 empty and finally they4ay only drone 

 eggs. If there was any possibility of 

 a second mating, some of the old 

 queens would have been found with a 

 "re-filled" spermatheca. But it has 

 never happened. 



There is another consideration : In 

 dissecting queens of different ages, it 

 is found that the entrance of the sexual 

 organs shrinks to some extent after 

 they are a few weeks old. That the 

 shrinkage takes place cannat be 

 doubted, whether it is sufficient to pre- 

 vent further mating cannot be told 

 positively. At any rate, Cheshire does 

 not make any positive assertion. We 

 may add also that clipped queens, 

 which certainly cannot mate a second 

 time, retain their prolificness as long as 

 any others. 



EGG-LAYING. 



What causes or prompts the queen 

 to lay worker eggs in small cells and 

 drones eggs in the large ones ? That 

 is another of those debatable questions 

 which take periodical rounds in the 

 bee papers. 



Is it instinct or is there any physical 

 cause for it ? So far as physical 

 causes are concerned, there is only one 

 possible, and only that one has been 

 advanced. Th^^t is the pressure of the 

 small cellron the'abdomen of the queen 

 forces her, or, at least, induces her, 

 to 1 .y a worker egg. 



Among the writers whose opinions 

 have some weight,, only Wagner, 

 Quinby and L. C. Root have held that 

 theory. They thought that the eggs 

 found in the queen cells might be put 

 there by ^he worker bees themselves. 

 Found tion at that time was very lit- 



tle used. Now we know positively that 

 the queens deposit the eggs in the 

 queen cells themselves. We also know 

 that they lay worker eggs in founda- 

 tion barely drawn, where the cells are 

 not much more than one-eighth of an 

 inch deep. In either case, no com- 

 pression is possible. So the compres- 

 sion theory has been abandoned, and 

 we now say that her instinct prompts 

 the queen to put unimpregnated eggs 

 in the drone cells. This is the only 

 explanation possible as far as we 

 know. Furthermore, it is in perfect 

 conformity with the laws of nature. A 

 larva in a worker cell is fed with a 

 particular food. Place that larva in a 

 queen cell and the bees will change the 

 food. Reverse the p.ocess; put a queen 

 larva in a worker cell and the bees 

 will feed her with worker food. Now, 

 if the size of the cell induces the bees 

 to change the food; why could not the 

 size of the cell induce the queen to lay 

 a certain kind of egg in the cells des- 

 tined to that purpose ? 



Instinct is something in the brain or 

 mind of the animal that induces him to 

 act in a certain way under certain cir- 

 cumstances. Here are a few examples : 



There is a young chick, perhaps onl}' 

 one day old; a hawk appears in the 

 sky; the chick has not seen it, and, if 

 he had, he would not have known what 

 it was; the hen gives a peculiar cluck, 

 and the chick immediately lies down 

 flat, and perfectly still, in the grass or 

 the dead leaves until another signal 

 from the hen calls him back. His in- 

 stinct prompts him to act so under 

 these circumstances, though he cer- 

 tainly cannot know why and what for. 



Another example is furnished by a 

 kind of mason bee which builds a nest 

 of clay, puts a certain quantity of food 

 in it, lays an egg on it, and builds a 

 cover on the whole. If, when the nest 

 is built, a hole is made in the bottom, 

 the bee will put in the usual amount of 

 food, lay the egg, and then cover the 

 empty nest as carefully as if nothing 



