394 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



is killed. Berlepsch had one colony in his 

 yard which, from early in the spring, had been 

 determined to supersede its queen ; but, by 

 continuously removing, the queen had been 

 kept from accomplishing the object. Ber- 

 lepsch had at different times during the season 

 removed or destroyed the drone brood in this 

 hive. At the time when Prof. Siebold came 

 into the apiary it had again plenty of drones 

 in all stages, and all the drone eggs used for 

 the examination were taken from this colony. 

 There is no certainty that they came from a 

 normally healthy queen. On the other hand, 

 we have reason to suspect that they could not 

 have contained sperm, by reason of the failing 

 powers of the queen who laid them, and of 

 which Prof. Siebold himself said, "She was 

 near her end." Taking this view of the mat- 

 ter we can understand why the other eggs 

 taken from worker-cells, and used for exami- 

 nation, were taken from other colonies in a 

 normal condition. 



After ascertaining these facts, Dickel could 

 not consider Siebold' s conclusions as of any 

 value, and went to work and did some experi- 

 menting. He put a colony of bees into a hive 

 full of drone comb, and watched the behavior 

 of the bees. Eggs appeared and disappeared 

 again. It seemed the bees hardly knew what 

 to do ; but finally they did the best they could 

 under the circumstances, and raised workers 

 in drone-cells. Late in the season, after all 

 desire had subsided to produce drones, and 

 the hive was entirely free from drone brood, 

 Dickel dequeened the colony and observed 

 that not only queens were raised, but also 

 drones, drone brood being sprinkled in among 

 the worker brood here and there. From this 

 he judged that all the eggs of normal queens 

 are exactly alike, and may produce queens, 

 drones, and workers. 



The following experiment has repeatedly 

 been tried by Dickel and others, and turned 

 out the same in numerous reported instances : 

 A piece of drone comb was taken containing 

 young drone larvae. These were very careful- 

 ly removed, and worker larvae substituted. 

 The so-prepared piece of brood was given to 

 a queenless colony having no other brood. 

 The bees went to work and again raised queens, 

 drones, and workers, all from worker larvae. 

 By this experiment is shown that the sexual 

 tendencies lie dormant in the worker larva 

 till nearly the time it is being sealed, when, 

 by some process not fully understood, the one 

 or the other of those tendencies is induced to 

 develop. 



Dickel opposes the idea that a worker larva 

 may be developed into a queen by the differ- 

 e7ice in the food the royal larva receives. He 

 says there must be some other explanation of 

 the mystery. A young Durham calf would 

 sooner partake of the nature of a Jersey by 

 bringing it up on Jersey milk. Indeed, there 

 is something in this that might lead us to 

 thinking. The two calves may be anatomical- 

 ly alike ; but the queen and the worker show 

 marked difference in their structure. A mere 

 change of food does not generally produce 

 such results, and I do not doubt that we do 

 not fully understand this matter. Dickel has 



his theory about this. He thinks the worker 

 porforms a sexual act by certain glands ; a 

 sort of developer, as the photographer says, is 

 produced, which, when administered, affects 

 the egg or the larva as indicated. Two glands 

 are to perform the office ; the secretion of one 

 gland acts as a developer of the female ten- 

 dency, while the secretion of the other gland 

 acts as a developer of the male tendency ; 

 both together administered bring the worker 

 into existence. In case of the true sex, indi- 

 viduals of the bee family, the drone and the 

 queen, the development of the sexual organs 

 begins when these secretions are first admin- 

 istered, and the queen and drone are still in 

 the egg. 



Bee-eggs, it is generally believed, can not 

 be transferred, on account of the fragility of 

 the egg. Dickel and some others claim that 

 they have been successful in doing it. By 

 transferring freshly laid eggs, untouched by 

 the bees, Dickel says he has raised queens, 

 drones, and workers, selecting eggs from the 

 same class of cells. 



No matter whether drones originate from 

 eggs fertilized or lacking sperm, I can not 

 think the queen knows what kind of egg she 

 lays. I believe that an influence goes out 

 from the cell, which causes the queen's ova- 

 ries, spermatheca, oviduct, and the whole ap- 

 paratus to operate involuntarily. 



Indeed, it would be hard to explain why a 

 queen should consent to lay eggs in queen- 

 cells, thus raising rivals, and possibly endan- 

 gering her own life. Of the many queen-cups 

 generally started in every part of the hive, 

 many more than are ever actually used come 

 in the way of the queen as she is traveling 

 over the combs in search of empty cells, and 

 she deposits an egg in them as readily as in a 

 worker or drone cell, should she find any of 

 them cleaned and primed, acting, as Dickel 

 says, as an automatic egg-laying machine. 



The true followers of Dzierzon are at pres- 

 ent glorying over what they term " Dickel's 

 capitulation." 



Dickel is searching for truth ; and when he 

 discovers a fact, though it may testify against 

 his theory, he is willing and anxious that that 

 fact shall be known. In No. 11 of the Hess- 

 ische Biene he has of late published the re- 

 sults of the latest microscopic examinations 

 of bee eggs made at the University of Frei- 

 burg, Germany. Dickel himself furnished 

 the eggs. In all, 272 eggs taken from drone- 

 cells were examined, and 62 eggs taken from 

 worker-cells. Among the first named, one 

 egg was found to contain sperm ; the 62 work- 

 er-cell eggs all contained sperm. One lot of 

 eggs from drone-cells were purposely misla- 

 beled by Dickel "worker-eggs," but the mi- 

 croscope could not be fooled. 



So, then, so far, parthenogenesis has not 

 been disproved by the microscope. I under- 

 stand Dickel has not given up the fight. He 

 proposes to continue in his work, and I have 

 no doubt we shall hear from him again. 



Naples, N. Y. 



[I have been advised by some of my friends 

 not to allow any discussion of the Dickel the- 



