THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



86 



air Avith the samo intent, it will not be difficult 

 for a quoc'u to niiiko choice ofau agreeable con- 

 sort. 



That the copulation of tlic bees takes place in 

 the open air, is certainly nothing remarkable, 

 as we see so many other insects perform the 

 act of copulation while flying fre('ly about in 

 the air. It is true that tiie copulative act is 

 very quickly completed by the bees, and this is 

 pro"i)er to all those insects in general, which, 

 Willi the bees, belong to the order h^Mnenoptera; 

 whilst the males and females of insects of other 

 orders usually remain for days closely united in 

 copulation. For this reason it is one of the 

 rarest events, for even the most observant ento- 

 mologist to suri)rise a pair of hymenoi>tcra in 

 flagranti. The bee-keepers therefore must not 

 be surprised that the act of copulation in bees 

 has hitherto been so little observed. However, 

 it has aceideutall}' been seen now and then by 

 human eyes, when a pair of bees, united in the 

 act of copulation, dashed down upon the earth 

 from the upper regions of the air. Such isolated 

 observations, information upon which has also 

 been given in the Bicnenzeitung., are certainly 

 suflicient evidence that the bees copulate out- 

 side of the hive. 



A still more convincing proof of the occur- 

 rence of this act of copuLation in the open air is 

 furnished bv the appearance and behavior of 

 the terlilized queen on her return from her 

 wedding-fiight. The completion of the coitus 

 of sucli a queen may betray itself even exter- 

 nally; not only does the external orifice of the 

 sexual ai)paratus, which was kept closed before 

 the wedding-llight stand open, but the torn male 

 copulative organ remains inhering in the 

 vagina, and partly protrudes from it. In order 

 to determine with certainty fiom its nature 

 what this foreign body, which had often been 

 detected in the vagina of a queen on her return 

 from the wedding-flight really was. Baron von 

 Berlepsch forwarded to me for careful examina- 

 tion on the 21st of Julj% 1853, one of these 

 queens, from the gaping sexual orifice of which 

 definitely formed parts protruded. The results 

 with which the exact anatomical and microsco- 

 pical examination of this queen has furnished 

 me, have been given by me in the B enenzeitung, 

 Nov. 26, lPo4. By this anal3'sis, I was able to 

 establish, that those definitely formed parts in 

 the vagina of the (lucen were nothing but the 

 torn copulative organs of a male bee, (drone.) 

 An intimate union of the two sexes of bees 

 must, therefore, have taken place. The re- 

 maining behind of torn i)ortions of the male 

 sexual organs in the interior of the female 

 vagina, is, however, a circumstance which oc- 

 curs not unfrequeutly in olh<r insects, especial- 

 ly in beetles. With this condition of the exter- 

 nal organs of the queen examined b}' me, the 

 state of the internal generative organs also 

 agreed exactlj', tor the seminal receptacle (sem- 

 inal vesicle,) which is empty in all virgin fe- 

 male insei ts, w = s in this queen filled to over- 

 flowimrwith spermatozoids (seminal filaments.) 

 This queen, therefore, had returned to her hive 

 certainly fertilized, and would have possessed 

 the power for a long time of cflecting the neces- 



sary f('rlilizalion of th(! eggs during oviposition 

 with this sup[)ly of nuile sennui. 



As in the act of opulalion of the bees, the 

 penis of a drone is conq)letely protruded out- 

 wards, and as no particular muscular apparatus 

 exists for the extension of the penis, the cir- 

 cumstaiue that the drone only copulates iu 

 flight, has an important signification, to Avhich 

 Pr<jf. Leuckart has already called attention. 

 During the movement of the wings, the dilferent 

 air-sacs of the tracheal system of the drone are 

 filled Avith air, by which means these can act by 

 pressure in the interior of the body of the bee 

 upon the neighboring penis which is to be pro- 

 truded. 



After this single fecundation, a queen-bee 

 can, for a long time, lay male or female eggsa^ 

 xcill., for by the filling of her seminal receptacle 

 with male semen, she has acquired the power 

 of producing female eggs, whilst before copu- 

 lation and Avith an empty seminal capsule, and 

 therefore in the virgin state, she can only lay 

 male eggs. 



The second and most important point of tlie 

 new theory of the reproduction of the bees, is 

 the proposition established by Dzierzon, that 

 "«W eqgs wliich come to maturity in ilia two ova- 

 ries of a queen bee are only of one and Ihe same 

 kind, which, ichen they are laid without coining 

 in contact icith the male semen, become develoj)cd 

 into male bees; but, on the contrary, lohen they 

 are fertilized by male semen, produce female 

 bees. ' ' 



Dzierzon therefore asserts that every egg laid 

 without fertilization by a queen-bee produces a 

 drone, and that every fertilized egg laid by her 

 produces a worker or a queen, according as the 

 larva excluded therefrom is nourished with 

 wnrker-food or royal-food. 



This proposition of Dzierzon's theory neces- 

 sarily made the greatest noise when it was first 

 announced, and requires above all to be sub- 

 mitted to the closest examination. Before I 

 undertake this examination, I Avill only remark 

 that one circumstance speaks a priori in favor 

 of this proposition of Dzierzon, namely, that 

 by adopting it every phenomenon, however re- 

 markable, in the sexual existence of the bees 

 may be easily explained. But as a time-hon- 

 ored physiological law is at once abolished by 

 this proposition, namely, that an egg which is to 

 be developed into a male or a fein/ile individual 

 must always be fertilized by the male semen, the 

 affiiir seems of suflScient importance to be 

 weighed and examined from all sides with the 

 utmost care. I have taken the trouble upon 

 myself and tested Dzierzon's assertion with all 

 the means at my command, by which I have 

 convinced mj'self in the following Avay of its 

 correctness. 



In the first place, I may appeal to the fact 

 that it is a general occurrence amongst insects, 

 that the females, even when they have not copu- 

 lated, deposite their mature eggs without fe- 

 cundation, it is therefore nothing remarkable 

 that a virgin ([Ueen deposites ( irgs. But we 

 must be astonisiied that these eggs, although 

 unfecundated, do not remain nndc-v-eloped; nay, 

 what is more, that only drones or male bees are 

 produced from such eggs. As to the truth of 



