74 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



The endless dispute about the reproduction 

 of bees, often carried on with great animosity, 

 in Avhich the opponents of the different theories 

 of generation relating to the bees often show- 

 ed themselves to be mere dilletanti, miserably 

 furnished with natural -history information, was 

 not fitted to attract the interest of physiologists. 

 Indeed, it appeared as if the apiarians wished 

 I o fight the battle out among themselves without 

 foreign assistance ; for the contest was never 

 brought within the province of an earnest in- 

 vestigation of nature. Moreover the naturalists 

 could not very easily take part in the dispute, 

 as they were mostly deficient in the practical 

 knowledge of the economy of bees, without 

 which every attempt to settle the matter must 

 have turned out imperfect, and would have 

 been received with direct distrust by the obsti- 

 nate bee-masters, to whom such an attempt 

 might have served as an instructive hint. In 

 this dispute of the apiarians, which was con- 

 stantly blazing up afresh, the activity of the 

 naturalists limited itself to their ascertaining 

 and establishing as an incontrovertible truth, 

 by the aid of the dissecting knife and the 

 microscope, that the drones are the male indi- 

 viduals, that the queen is the female individual, 

 and that the workers are not merely a sexual, 

 but female individuals wliose reproductive 

 organs had not come to their full development. 

 Upon this subject investigations were made and 

 published by the zootomists at very different 

 periods. I refer only to the w(n-ks of Swam- 

 merdam, Reaumur, Mademoiselle Juriue, Suck- 

 ow, and Ratzeburg. Although the representa- 

 llons of the male and female sexual organs of the 

 bees have been copied from Swammerdam's Bib- 

 Ike Naiursi by various writers Upon these insects, 

 and consequently the facts established anato- 

 mically were communicated to the apiarians, yet 

 for a long time these truths could not boast of 

 a recognition by all bee-keepers. These ento- 

 motomic investigations probably did not appear 

 sufficiently significant to the apiarians, because 

 there Avere still many things in the history of the 

 reproduction of the bees, which could not be 

 explained with this knowledge of the sexual 

 relations of these animals. Many practical 

 apiarians looked upon this anatomical proof of 

 the sexes of the bees merclj' as theoretical stuff, 

 and returned to their so-called practical way, 

 which they imagined to be the right one, with- 

 out regard to these facts, preferring to explain 

 the difierent sexual functions in a perfectly 

 arbitrary and unnatural fashion, according to 

 their own individual and often very limited 

 views. 



After I had, in the year 1837, ascertained the 

 existence and signification of the seminal re- 

 ceptacle in female insects, and in 1843 called 

 attention to this reservoir of semen in the queen 

 bees, by the functions of which many phe- 

 nomena in the reproductive activity of the 

 bees, wliicii had hitherto remained problemati- 

 cal, or had been incorrectly explained, might 

 be properly conceived, these investigations ex- 

 erted no particular influence upon the perverted 

 views of most of the apiarians. They probably 

 paid no further attention to them, regarding 

 them as theoretic;*! stuff", and yet, by the recog- 



nition of the function of the seminal receptacle, 

 a phenomenon in the bee-hive, which had been 

 a source of wonder from time immemorial, 

 could now be correctly explained. Thus it had 

 been ascertained by me that after copulation 

 had taken place, the semen of the drone, which 

 filled the seminal receptacle to overflowing, re- 

 mained in this place, capable of impregnating 

 the eggs, not merely for months, but for years, 

 as might be seen from the movements of the 

 spermatozoids of this semen continuing for that 

 period. This explains how a queen, fertilized 

 by a single coitus, after discharging her eggs 

 in the first year, may again in the following 

 year, and even still more frequently, lay eggs 

 capable of development, such as the hive re- 

 quires, as fertilizing semen is constantly pre- 

 served in her seminal receptacle, to fecundate 

 eggs even for so long a period. But even this 

 discovery was ignored by most of the apiarians. 

 As a general rule, fresh scruples as to the value 

 of such anatomical and microscopical investi- 

 gations were constantly rising among them 

 with respect to the determination of the sexual 

 functions of the bees. 



There were two phenomena especially in the 

 economy of the bees, which troubled the minds 

 of the apiarians Avith reference to the division 

 of the sexual functions in those insects. I 

 mean, first, the capability of an . imperfect- 

 winged female to produce brood, and, second, 

 the production of brood in queenless hives. 

 Those who acknowledged the queen as the 

 female individual of the bees, and, in accord- 

 ance with the physiological laws hitherto cur- 

 rent, ascribed to her the proi)eriy of laying 

 eggs capable of development only after previous 

 copulation and the filling of the seminal re- 

 ceptacle with spermatozoids, were, in conse- 

 quence of the first-mentioned phenomenon, 

 rendered doubtful Avhere and when the copu- 

 lation of the queen bee is afl^ected. From this 

 arose the dispute, abundantly battled out in the 

 books and journals relating to bees, as to whether 

 the queen copulates in or out of the hive. 

 That the former was possible was thought to be 

 proved by the imperfect-winged ciueen laj'ing 

 eggs capable of development, and thus the two 

 sexes of the bees were supposed to perform the 

 act of copulation in the interior of the bee-hive, 

 although such a copulation in the hive had never 

 been seen. In those cases in which the second 

 remarkable phenomenon previously mentioned 

 occurred, namely, brood in a queenless bee- 

 hive, we should entirely mistake the sexual 

 functions of the bees. Such observations were 

 principally employed in raising objections of 

 insufficiency and untenability against the scien- 

 tific endeavors at the determination of the sexes 

 of bees. 



In most zoological and entomological works 

 we find all the acrimonious controversies re- 

 garding bee life either imperfectlj'^ mentioned 

 or scarcely indicated, and heflce it may have 

 happened that the history of the reproduction 

 of the bees has remained untouched by those 

 physiologists who have specially occupied them- 

 selves with the generation of animals. On this 

 side no one had any idea what difficult i)roblems 

 are here presented to . science for solution. 



