November, 1910. 



American Hee Journal 



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Contributed Articles 



Sex of Eggs— Does the Queen 

 Know? 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



It was about the year 1842 that Dzier- 

 zon first began to mention his discov- 

 ery of parthenogenesis in queen-bees, 

 or the faculty which queens have of 

 laying eggs that will hatch without be- 

 ing impregnated. This was called a 

 tAeo>-y at first; it is now known as a 

 far/. Not only have other noted scien- 

 tists, Siebold, Leuckart and Berlepsch, 

 made examination of the eggs of bees 

 and ascertained that the eggs laid in 

 drone-cells were absolutely without 

 the spermatozoa of fecundation, but 

 thousands of people have proven the 

 so-called theory to be true by many 

 different experiments. We, ourselves, 

 have had queens become drone-layers 

 by being reared at a time when there 

 were no drones which they could meet. 

 Those queens, born in November, in 

 full colonies, were healthy and vigor- 

 ous when spring came, but it was too 

 late for fecundation, and the eggs which 

 they laid as plentifully as mated queens 

 do, hatched in drones. 



By the way, this is a possible method 

 for plenty of early drones in spring of 

 the breed you desire. Make a strong 

 colony or 2 queenless late in the sea- 

 son, when it is too late for the young 

 queens to mate, and you will have a 

 large number of drones from these 

 colonies in early spring. But they 

 must be reinforced from time to time 

 with worker-brood after the opening 

 of spring, or they would soon dwindle 

 to a population of drones. They must 

 also be provided with drone-combs in- 

 stead of worker-combs, else the brood 

 will be small drones hatched in worker- 

 cells; for the queen, when she is a 

 drone-layer, does not seem to have any 

 choice of cells, and lays eggs as readily 

 in small as in large ones. 



A young queen, freshly fertilized, 

 prefers to lay eggs in worker-cells. She 

 rarely makes any mistakes, and avoids 

 the drone-cells. Later in life, and es- 

 pecially at the latter end of the spring 

 laying, she lays eggs indiscriminately 

 in worker or drone cells as she comes 

 to them, but always workers in small 

 cells and drones in large cells. When 

 accidentally the cells are of irregular 

 size, cells of accommodation, or when 

 they have been stretched and deformed 

 under the weight of honey, the eggs 

 laid in such cells usually hatch as 

 drones. 



When swarming time comes, and she 

 becomes tired of laying, she earnestly 

 seeks for drone-cells. The workers 

 ividently recognize this desire of the 

 queen, and at such times leave unfilled 

 patches of drone-comb, in the midst of 

 worker-comb filled with honey, so the 

 queen may satisfy this desire. 



Mr. Samuel Wagner, the founder of 

 the /vUierican Bee Journal, and a great 

 observer, had a theory in regard to the 



cause of impregnation of the eggs laid 

 in worker-cells, for he did not believe 

 that the queen knew the sex of her 

 eggs. He thought that the worker- 

 cell being narrow, the abdomen of the 

 queen was slightly compressed when 

 inserted in a worker-cell, and that this 

 compression caused the impregnation 

 of the egg by forcing some of the 

 spermatozoa out of the spermatheca 

 into the oviduct at the time of the pas- 

 sage of the egg. Drone-cells being 

 wider, he held that the abdomen was 

 not pressed, and the egg, unfertilized, 

 hatched into a drone. 



This very plausible theory was set at 

 naught by the fact, noticed by practic- 

 ing apiarists, that when the bees are 

 building new combs the queen often 

 lays eggs that hatch into workers by 

 thousands, in cells just begun that are 

 only rudimentary. This happens when 

 the queen is very prolific, and the 

 swarm is unable to keep up ahead of 

 her in building combs. Those cells 

 are finished as the brood progresses. 

 This fact overthrows the theory of 

 mechanical pressure as a factor of sex. 



One thing is certain : The queen 

 usually prefers to lay eggs in worker- 

 cells, especially when she is young and 

 vigorous. She evidently finds more 

 pleasure in laying these eggs than 

 those in drone-cells. When she seeks 

 for drone-cells and avoids worker-cells 

 she is tired of laying, and continues 

 only because Nature presses her, for 

 her eggs would drop like ripe fruit if 

 she could not place them in cells. If 

 a swarm be shaken on a black cloth, 

 and the queen remains among the bees 

 on that cloth for a few minutes, the 

 apiarist can usually detect those minute 

 white specks upon the cloth after the 

 bees have entered the hive. Some old 

 authors indicate that as a means of 

 ascertaining whether the queen was 

 among her bees. 



The fertilization of the egg, whether 

 it is due to the position of the queen in 

 laying or by her will, undoubtedly re- 

 sults in a certain amount of pleasure, 

 and that is why she prefers to lay eggs 

 in worker-cells. But when the acting 

 muscles are tired from a too protracted 

 laying, then she feels the necessity of 

 resting, and seeks for larger cells in 

 which the egg passes out without im- 

 pregnation. If there is will on her 

 part, in the impregnation or non-im- 

 pregnation of each egg, it must be due 

 to a mere instinct, for no other living 

 being knows beforehand the sex of its 

 progeny, or has the selection of this 

 sex. The queen is said to lay eggs in 

 rudimentary queen-cells. I have never 

 caught her in the act. It is strange 

 that she should do so when she so 

 eagerly destroys these queen-cells after 

 they have been sealed by the bees. Her 

 laying in such cells is evidently in- 

 stinctive and unreasoned, a mere me- 

 chanical animal function. 



That the queen usually prefers work- 

 er-cells until the season of breeding is 

 far advanced hardly admits of a doubt. 



If you remove all the drone-comb in 

 early spring, and replace it with worker- 

 comb or comb foundation, the queen 

 will continue to lay worker-eggs for 

 weeks and months without apparent 

 dissatisfaction. It is not until a large 

 amount of brood has been reared and 

 hatched that the workers will appar- 

 ently understand the need of drones, or 

 the desire of the queen for drone- 

 combs, and will reserve these. I have 

 often been told that the bees tear down 

 worker-comb to rebuild sheets of 

 drone-comb. In every instance where 

 I have been able to trace this I have 

 found that an error had been made. I 

 do not believe that the workers ever 

 tear down combs that are not defective, 

 moldy, or filled with dead bees or rot- 

 ten pollen, whether it is to change 

 worker into drone, or z'ice versa. 



If the bees were inclined to change 

 combs by tearing them down and re- 

 buildmg them they would certainly do 

 it when the trick is tried of removing 

 all worker-comb and replacing them 

 with drone-comb. This has been done 

 by a number of persons, and always 

 with the same result. Either the bees 

 narrowed down the mouth of the cells 

 to worker size, and then the queen laid 

 worker-eggs in those narrowed cells, 

 or, as was often the case, the bees de- 

 serted these ill-suited combs and 

 sought another abode. I believe it 

 may be stated as a fact, with exceed- 

 ingly rare exceptions, that a queen will 

 not lay worker-eggs in ordinary drone- 

 cells. 



The September number, 1910, of 

 L'Apiculteur of Paris, contains a report 

 from A. Brisset, who, wishing to try a 

 theory advanced lately that large cells 

 would produce larger worker-bees, 

 took it into his head to give a swarm 

 nothing but worker-comb in the hope 

 that he might rear a lot of workers as 

 large as drones, or nearly so. A bright 

 idea, indeed! He met a total failure, 

 and very humorously reported his dis- 

 comfiture in that magazine, in order to 

 show that many ideas advanced by en- 

 thusiasts often lack in practicability. 

 Yet we need new ideas, for it is through 

 these only that progress comes. So 

 we must not discourage the "cranks" 

 altogether, for once in a while they 

 show us the way to better things. 



Hamilton, III. 



Wintering Bees on tlie Summer 

 Stands 



BY F. H. CYRENIUS. 



Now that the time is here when we 

 must prepare our bees for the winter, 

 we must decide what these preparations 

 will be. 



A good cellar, if not too dry, will 

 save from .5 to 1j pounds of honey per 

 colony; and, on the other hand, the 

 bees wintered outside seem to have a 

 vitality when spring comes that those 

 wintered in the cellar do not have. 



I have always found a damp cellar, 

 under a kitchen stove, much better than 

 a very dry cellar near a furnace. I have 

 wintered bees successfully in cellars 

 where a stream of water ran through 

 all winter, and where it would be so 

 muddy that rubbers would be needed. 



A light, thin, unpainted board or 



