1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



393 



during the summer, and until heavy frost 

 came in the fall. One colony, the " Queen " 

 of my apiary, did itself " proud." During 

 the season we took from it ten supers of well- 

 filled and nicely capped white honey, each 

 super containing 24 lbs. It did not swarm, 

 and we had a heavy flow of bassw.ood honey. 

 The other colonies swarmed early, and the 

 10th of June I had 37 strong colonies. I did 

 not get less than two supers of honey from 

 any colony, and many of them four. 

 Summit City, Mich., Feb. 11. 



[In my report of the convention at Traverse 

 City, Mich., page 158, I spoke about the re- 

 markable yield secured by a lady present, and 

 she only a beginner. I have asked her to 

 write it out, which she has done as above. — 

 A. I. R.l 



THE DICKEL THEORY. 



What do we Know about Parthenogenesis and oth- 

 er Mysteries of the Hive ? 



BY F. GRKINBR. 



A human being is naturally of an inquisitive 

 mind ; and when any thing is presented to 

 him which has the appearance of being un- 

 reasonable he at once wants to know the hows 

 and whys. In the case of parthenogenesis, it 

 does not make any material difference wheth- 

 er it is acknowledged that all eggs laid by a 

 normal queen are fertilized, and therefore con- 

 tain sperm, or whether it is believed that only 

 those eggs destined to become queens and 

 workers enjoy that preference or privilege. 

 Your bees will make you just as much or as 

 little honey in the one case as in the other. 

 Yet, we do not rest easy until we know what 

 the exact truth is. If we bear in mind that 

 all good people seek the truth, we ought to be 

 willing to show not only charity to those who 

 arrive at different conclusions, but we ought 

 to even encourage them. If we have that 

 feeling we will welcome Mr. Dickel, who has 

 for years been trying to clear away mysteries 

 surrounding the so-called Dzierzon theory, or 

 parthenogenesis. 



According to Webster, parthenogenesis 

 means "the virgin production of living be- 

 ings." Probably all of us have had unpleas- 

 ant experiences with laying workers. I em- 

 phasize the word "laying," because many a 

 time laying workers are called fertile workers. 

 Even Prof. Cook names them so in his work 

 on bees. That is a misnomer. We call a nor- 

 mal queen a. fertile queen — she is impregnat- 

 ed, has met a drone. In this sense the laying 

 workers are not fertile, for they are incapable 

 of mating. Laying workers generally make 

 their appearance in hopelessly queenless colo- 

 nies, seldom at other times. The worker bee 

 is so constituted that, in an emergency, she 

 can lay eggs. She may have retained this 

 faculty as an inheritance frona most remote 

 ancestry. These eggs, however, produce only 

 male bees, apparently perfectly developed. A 

 ^ueen, when by chance she has not become 

 impregnated, lays eggs exactly like those from 



laying workers. A failing queen may also 

 lay eggs which produce only drones, though 

 they may have been deposited in worker-cells 

 like the others. These facts were first discov- 

 ered by Dr. Dzierzon, of Germany, in 1845, 

 and are acknowledged the world over. Dzier- 

 zon further claimed that all drone eggs lacked 

 the sperm, and that the queen could at will 

 lay fertilized and unfertilized eggs. 



It seems to be a law of nature among bees 

 and fowls that the female offspring resembles 

 the father and male offspring the mother. 

 For example, I have crossed pure breeds of 

 fowls. The pullets of a Langshan-Plymouth 

 Rock cross were as black as the father, and, 

 when matured, I was not able to tell them 

 from the pure-blooded hens. The cockerels 

 resembled the mother-hen, but were a little 

 darker. 



It may be Dr. Dzierzon was influenced by 

 similar observations. If it was true that the 

 drone originated from an unfertilized egg, 

 then the drone would always be as pure-blood- 

 ed as the mother-bee, regardless of how she 

 had mated, and queen-breeding to a feather 

 would be a heap easier than it would be oth- 

 erwise. 



What is our experience ? I have had a good 

 many mismated black queens and some mis- 

 mated Italians queens. My observation leads 

 me to the belief that the drones are slightly 

 influenced in color, showing that of the fa- 

 ther, in some instances at least. I do not say 

 that all drones do, but only a part of them. 

 Mr. Doolittle also holds the opinion that, by 

 mismating, a queen is contaminated as re- 

 gards all her offspring, both male and (female. 



After Dzierzon proclaimed his theory that 

 all drone-producing eggs were unfertilized, a 

 severe fight ensued. It had been an undisput- 

 ed scientific truth, a law of nature, "No life 

 without fertilization." Even in the vegetable 

 kingdom this law holds good. Ttie pistillate 

 strawberry-plant remains barren unless the 

 pollen from a perfect- flowering plant reaches 

 its ovaries. The Dzierzon theory upset this 

 acknowledged truth completely. No wonder 

 it met with opposition on every hand. After 

 an undecided war, something happened that 

 should end all further dispute for the time 

 being. Prof. Siebold made a microscopic ex- 

 amination of bee-eggs taken from drone and 

 worker cells at the apiary of Baron von Ber- 

 lepsch, in Seebach, Germany. The eggs from 

 drone comb contained no sperm, but those 

 from worker- cells did. From this time on, 

 parthenogenesis, in the Dzierzon sense, has 

 been accepted by all people of all countries. 



It excites the curiosity of the unprejudiced 

 observer that, at no time, verifying examina- 

 tions have been undertaken since, although- 

 the theory is of a rather uncommon — yes, un- 

 reasonable — character. This thought instigat- 

 ed Dickel to investigate the matter. Siebold 

 had made his examinations in late season, 

 when, according to Berlepsch, there were no 

 drones being raised in healthy colonies of his 

 apiary. The locality of Seebach furnishes no 

 late honey. Early in July the season closes, 

 and, in consequence, the breeding of drones 

 is discontinued, and drones and drone brood 



