IMPREGNATION OF THE QUEEN. 53 



duct, and filled with a whitish fluid ; * this fluid 

 when examined under the microscope, abounded in 

 the spermatozoa which characterizes seminal fluid. 



" A comparison of this substance later in the sea- 

 son with the semen of a drone, proved them to be 

 exactly alike." 



" These examinations have settled, on the impreg- 

 nable basis of demonstration, the mode in which the 

 eggs of the queen are vivified. In descending the 

 oviduct to be deposited in the cells, they pass by the 

 mouth of this seminal sac, or ' spermathecaj and 

 receive a portion of its fertilizing contents. Small 

 as it is, it contains sufficient to impregnate hundreds 

 of thousands of eggs." 



" Dzierzon asserts that all impregnated eggs pro- 

 duce females, either workers or queens ; and all un- 

 impregnated ones males or drones ; and concluded 

 that the eggs laid by the queen bee and fertile worker 

 had, from the previous impregnation of the eggs from 

 which they sprung, sufficient vitality to produce the 

 drone, which is a less highly organized insect than 

 the queen or worker." 



" It had long been known that the queen deposits 



* " Posel describes the oviduct of the queen, the sperraatheca 

 and its contents, and the use of the latter in impregnating the 

 passing egg. This work was published at Munich, in 1784. It 

 seems also from his work that before the investigations of Huber, 

 Jansha, the bee-keeper royal of Maria Theresa, had discovered 

 the fact that the young queens leave their hive in search of the 

 drones . " Langstroth . 



