S2 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



with such convincing reasons which could be 

 brought in accordance both witli tlie anatomi- 

 cal relations of the bees and with the physiolo- 

 gical laws of iuse«t and animal life in general, 

 that at last I could no longer hesitate in admit- 

 ting the correctness of Dzierzon's theory of re- 

 production. 



Dzierzon expressed his views on the theory 

 of the reproduction of bees in the year 1845, in 

 the Bienenzeitung of Eichstadt, but without par- 

 ticularly emphasising the most important de- 

 tails of his theory, t consider it necessary to 

 reproduce the views expressed by Dzierzon in 

 that journal, word for word. They run as fol- 

 lows: 



"Presupposing what will be referred to and 

 proved in the following numbers, that the 

 queen (female bee) to become good for any- 

 thing must be fertilized by a drone, (male bee) 

 and that the copulation takes place in the air, 

 I express the conviction, from which all phe- 

 nomena and mysteries may be perfectly ex- 

 •plained, that the drone-eggs do not require fe- 

 cundation; but that the co-operation of the drone 

 is absolutely necessary when worker-bees are 

 to be produced. Whilst in the higher animals 

 the male is the perfect and ruling creature — 

 the bull keeps together and as it were rules the 

 herd of cattle, and the cock does the same with 

 the hens — the reverse of this takes place with 

 the insects. In the wasps, hornets, humble 

 bees, ants, and especially in the bees, the per- 

 fect female forms the central point and holds 

 the swarm together. As even the drones are 

 subordinated to her, they are also in themselves 

 altogether imperfect creatures, for the produc- 

 tion of which so many forces and conditions 

 are not necessary even on the part of nature as 

 for the production of the queen, and what is the 

 same thing of the workers. (The ancients even 

 appear to have indicated this by the denomina- 

 tion /wcms.) The truth of this assertion ap- 

 pears at once from the fact that as everything 

 that is capable of the more difficult and greater 

 effect may also produce the easier and smaller 

 one; so every stock, which is in a condition to 

 produce worker-bees, may also produce drones, 

 when suitable cells are not wanting in the nest; 

 but not inversely. In copulation the ovaries 

 are not fecundated, but the seminal receptacle, 

 that little vesicle which in the young queen is 

 filled with a watery moisture, is saturated with 

 semen, after which it is more clearly distin- 

 guishable from its white color. The activity of 

 the ovary in the normal state only commences 

 after copulation, but is not necessarily caused 

 thereby; hence many unfecundated queens lay 

 no eggs at all, whilst others lay drone eggs; and 

 even workers do the latter, although, from their 

 want of a seminal receptacle, I regard them as 

 quite incapable of copulation. I am convinced 

 that such eggs are sufficient for the production 

 of drones, whilst the egg from which a queen 

 or a worker is to be developed must come in 

 contact with the filled seminal receptacle. This 

 is certainly only a hypothesis, and will proba- 

 ly remain so, but one to which every close ob- 

 server will no more be able to refuse assent, 

 than the hypothesis of Copernicus, that the 

 earth turns round upon its axis, for all the mys- 



terious phenomena in the commonwealth of the 

 bees are very simply explained by it." 



In a separate bee-book, Dzierzon subsequent- 

 ly summed up his views upon the reproduction 

 of bees, as a regular theory, in the following 

 manner: 



"Therefore, and this must be well borne in 

 mind, in the copulation of the queen, the ovary 

 is not impregnated, but this vesicle or seminal 

 receptacle is penetrated or filled by the male 

 semen. By this, much, nay all of what waa 

 enigmatical is solved — especially how the queen, 

 can lay fertile eggs in the early spring, when 

 there are no males in the hive. The supply of 

 semen received during copulation is sufficient for 

 her whole life. The copulation takes place once 

 for all. The queen then never flies out again, 

 except when the whole colony removes. When 

 she has begun to lay, we may, without scruple, 

 cut off her wings; she will still remain fertile 

 until her death. But in her youth every queen 

 must have flown out at least once, because the 

 fertilization only takes place in the air; there- 

 fore no queen which has been lame in her 

 wings from her birth, can ever be perfectly fer- 

 tile; I say perfectly fertile, or capable of pro- 

 ducing both sexes. For to lay drone eggs, ac- 

 cording to my experience, requires no fecunda- 

 tion at all. This is exactly the new and pecu- 

 liar point in my theory, which I at first only 

 ventured to put forward as a hypothesis, but 

 which has since been completely confirmed. 

 Three young queens with imperfect wings have 

 occurred during the past summer, and these, 

 from the imperfection of their wings, could evi- 

 dently never have taken the fertilizing flight, 

 and also on dissection proved to be unfecunda- 

 ted, nevertheless laid drone eggs." "By this, 

 all the mysteries which we have hitherto vainly 

 endeavored to unriddle, are completely solved. 

 In the first place the enigma: Why is it that 

 many mothers — they may be either queens or 

 workers in their form — are only capable of pro- 

 pagating the male sex or drones? Because the 

 former are either unfecundated or their fertility 

 is exhausted; the latter, on the other hand, are 

 incapable of fertilization." 



"For I am firm'y convinced that the egg-lay- 

 ing worker-bees, which occur abnormally, are 

 fi'om the want of a seminal receptacle, just as 

 little capable of being fertiUzed as the young 

 queen in want of sound wings. Moreover, 

 there is certainly no doubt that by the peculiar 

 tone of her wings the ciueeu allures the drones 

 to her, and disposes them to copulation, of 

 which a worker is of course incapable. In th3 

 second place, the before-mentioned power of 

 the fertile queen to lay worker and drone eggs 

 at pleasure, is rendered very easy of explana- 

 tion by the fact that the drone eggs require no 

 fecundation, but bring the germ of life with 

 them out of the ovary; whilst otherwise it Avould 

 be inexplicable and incredible. Thus, as it has 

 already been shown that the ovaries are not im- 

 pregnated, but that the seminal receptacle is 

 filled during copulation, the queen has it in her 

 power to deposite an egg just as it comes from 

 the ovary and as the unfecundated mothers lay 

 it; or by the action of the seminal receptacle, 

 past which it must glide, to invest it with a 



