86 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



thif phenomenon, plenty of observations are 

 adtlucecl by tlie apinrians, of which I bring for- 

 ward only as the most convincing example, the 

 drone-productiveness of a virgin queen with 

 imperfect wings. Every observant and expe- 

 rienced bee-keeper knows the. ill consequences ' 

 introduced b}^ the queen -bee which has been j 

 excluded with crippled wings, and which has ! 

 acquired the douiinion of a liee-hive. She finds i 

 herself prevented from undertaking the wed- 

 ding-flight, but loUows the impulse to oviposi- 

 tion, and supplies worker-culls and drone-cells 

 indiscriminately with unfecundated eggs. These 

 arrive at development, the larva; excluded from 

 them are provided with nourishment by the 

 workers, tlicy grow up, but all of the same size 

 and the same nature; for they are all drone- 

 larva3. Those which have grown in worker- 

 cells cannot find room in these, and therefore 

 the workers elevate their narrow cells by sub- 

 sequent additions so as to obtain room, and in 

 this way produce misshapen combs, or combs 

 with the so-called humped brood (biickelbrut). 



A very interesting experiment was made by 

 Berlepsch in order to confirm the drone-produc- 

 tiveness of a virgin queen. He contrived the ex- 

 clusion of queens at the end of September, 1854, 

 and therefore v\t a time when there were no 

 longer any males; he was lucky enough to keep 

 one of them through the winter, and this pro- 

 duced drone-offspring on the 2d of March, in 

 the following year, furnishing 1,500 cells with 

 humped brood. That this drone-bearing queen 

 had really remained a virgin, was proved by 

 the dissection which Prof. Leuckart executed at 

 the request of Berlepsch. 



The true cause of such a drone-productiveness 

 in a bee-hive, however, could only be detected 

 by an apiarian as acute and endoAved with such 

 a distinguished power of observation as Dzicr- 

 zon, whilst up to this time the unfortunate oc- 

 currence of an excess of drone-brood in a bee- 

 liive has been quite differently and falsely un- 

 derstood by other bee-keepers. They laid no 

 stress upon the fact that such a hive only con- 

 tained drone-brood, but they merely wondered 

 that such a hive, governed by a queen witli 

 crippled wings contained any brood at all; and 

 they endeavored to explain this phenomenon by 

 the supposition thai this unexpected tirood could 

 only be produced ky a fertilized queen. But as 

 the queen from which this brood was derived 

 liad been found to be crippled in the wings, 

 they erred in respect to the affair of copulation, 

 and supp sed that this crippled brood-bearing 

 queen was certainly fertilized, and that conse- 

 quently the act of copulation was eflected by the 

 queen-bee within the hive. This erroneous 

 conclusion of course brought in a number of 

 other errors with regard to the signification of 

 particular bee individuals and their functions, 

 by which a correct insight into the process of 

 reproduction in the bees must always have been 

 disturbed. Dzierzon alone did not allow him- 

 self to be diverted from the right path in his 

 observations; he maintained that the female 

 bee can only retmn fertilized to her hive after 

 the performance of her wedding flight. He did 

 not, howeyer, content himself with the matter 

 of experience. He went further in his rational 



way of investigating bee-life. He examined 

 more closely the egg-]a3'ing and drone-bearing 

 queens, which, according to his observations, 

 were to be regarded as virgins. He tore away 

 the apex of their abdomen, by which means he 

 succeeded in getting sight of the seminal recep- 

 tacle, which, in a female bee, is of the size of a 

 pin's head. Dzierzon knew from experience 

 that a fertilized bee in the normal state con- 

 tains a miUc-white sQmmi\\ capsule, which, when 

 crushed, gives issue to the milky seminal fluid. 

 He knew that the empty seminal capsule of a 

 newly excluded virgin queen is not milk-white, 

 but limpid; and he convinced himself that in 

 those drone-bearing queens with crippled Avings 

 the seminal capsule was limpid and empty of 

 semen, and consequently in the same state as 

 the seminal capsule of a virgin queen. I have 

 spoken Avith Dzierzon upon these observations, 

 and as from my own microscopical examina- 

 tion, I was well acquainted Avith the state of the 

 sexual organs of virgin and fertilized queens, 

 I Avas thus in a position to judge quite safely, 

 from the description which Dzierzon gave me 

 of his investigations made Avithout a micro- 

 scope, that he had acquired perfectly correct 

 notions as to the diflerence in the condition of 

 the sexual organs of a virgin and a fecundated 

 female bee, and therefore could not well have 

 deceived himself in this respect. 



Moreover, I felt myself the less inclined to 

 doubt the correctness of these observations of 

 Dzierzon's just reported, as I could not but re- 

 member that, according to my OAvn observa- 

 tions, the females of certain psycMdm lay unfer- 

 tilized eggs which ar® also developed, bufe 

 inversely, instead of males produce nothing 

 but females. Dzierzon, however, by other ob- 

 servations, furnished me with evidence in faA'or 

 of his proposition, that drones alone are ahvaj'S 

 produced from unfertilized bees' eggs when they 

 are developed, and that consequently in order 

 to obtain drone-l)rood, it is not necessary that 

 the queen bee should fertilize the eggs when 

 laying them. As I have already mentioned, it 

 happens noAV and then in a bee-hive, especially 

 Avhen it has lost its queen, that individual Avork- 

 ers lay eggs. This phenomenon has long been 

 known to every experienced bee-keeper; nay, 

 it had already been ol S-'rved that only drones 

 are developed from these eggs laid by workers; 

 but it is only from the attentive observer, Dzier- 

 zon, that Ave knoAV Avhy such egg-laying Avork- 

 ers arc ahvaysthe parents of drones, or, in other 

 Avords, why only drones are always developed 

 from these eggs produced by Avorkers, if they 

 attain to development. This phenomenon stands 

 in the closest connection with the drone-pro- 

 ductiveness of the virgin queen-bees already 

 mentioned. 



[to be continued.] 



[For tlie American Bee Journal ] 



Questions ADSwered. 

 In reply to J. L. McCune, Vol. 3, page 58: 

 Question 1st. There trill. 

 Question 2d. I do not believe any person ever 

 had bees Avork freely on red clover. 



J. H. Thomas, 

 Breeder of Italian Queens. 

 Brooklin, Canada. 



