The American Apiculturist. 



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Published Monthly. S. M. Locke, Pubhsher & Prop'r. 



VOL. III. 



WENHAM, MASS., APRIL i, 1885. 



No. 4. 



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EECEPTACULUM SEMINIS 

 OF BEESA 



By F. R. Cheshire. 



The labours of Siebold, Ber- 

 lepsch, Leuckart, and others, have 

 put the fact of parthenogenesis in 

 bees altogether be^'ond dispute, but 

 the argument, as these investiga- 

 tors have given it, although abun- 

 dantly sufficient, has lacked that 

 anatomical contirmation which it 

 is the object of the present paper to 

 supply. 



iSince the honey bee can be so 

 readily kept under observation, and 

 the modern hive which forms its 

 habitat under domestication can 

 be so easily and completely manip- 

 ulated, it will be not only more 

 useful but more convenient to 

 concentrate our attention some- 

 what upon this member of the 

 family Apidse, although no doubt 



Reprinted from the Journal of the Royal 

 Microscopical Society, London, Eug. 



the facts to be introduced will ap- 

 ply with certain modifications to 

 every species in it. 



It must be remarked by way of 

 introduction, that it has long been 

 known that a queen or mother bee 

 is not doomed to total sterility if 

 raised at a part of the year wheji 

 drones (males) do not exist, but 

 that she, although later than at the 

 normal period, begins to deposit 

 eggs, which, however, are in no in- 

 stance converted into workers, but 

 invariably produce drones, which 

 must be of course, in this case at 

 least, generated parthenogeneti- 

 cally. Similarly, if a queen of the 

 Italian race (^pts Ligustica) which 

 has consorted^ with an Italian 

 drone be placed in a hive contain- 

 ing English bees {Apis melUfica) 

 only, and which is itself located in 

 a neighborhood where Italians are 

 unknown, all her progeny, both 

 workers and drones, will to the 

 end of her life continue pure, car- 

 rying their characteristic yellow 

 abdominal bands and a thousand 

 other minor distinctive peculiari- 

 ties ; but should she leave with a 

 swarm or die, the workers will raise 

 a successor from one of her eggs. 

 The queen resulting must of neces- 

 sity mate with an English drone, 

 and as a consequence the workers 

 *A11 bees mate but once. 

 (73) 



