102 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



no w^e to tliem, as the clevclopment of their 

 copulative and fccundative organs has not kept 

 pace with that of their ovaries and oviducts. 

 The external sexual organs, as well as the sem- 

 inal receptacle, remain abortive in these egg- 

 laying workers, for which reason they are not 

 in a condition to copulate and receive fer- 

 tilizing semen. They will, therefore, only be 

 able to lay uufecundated eggs, from which, if 

 they actually arrive at development, only male 

 bees (drones) are produced, no matter whether 

 t'hey were laid in worker-cells or drone-cells. 

 The cause of the production of an excess of 

 drones and humped-brood comb in a queculess 

 liive is, therefore, that as regards the nature of 

 her deposited eggs, an egg-laying worker-bee 

 is in exactly the same position as an egg-laying 

 virgin queen — both can only be the parents of 

 drones. 



Why the egg-laying workers can only lay 

 unferti'ized eggs, I have already explained in 

 my letter to the Baron of Rerlepsch. At that 

 time, indeed, I had not been enabled to dissect 

 an egg-laying worker-bee; so tiiat the principal 

 proof of the correctness of my views as to the 

 drone-productiveness of the workers still had 

 to be obtained. This proof Baron von Bcrlepsch 

 has since furnished by dissecting a worker-bee 

 ■which was laying drone-eggs, and finding there- j 

 in a small ovary with about eight pretty well 

 developed eggs, but no seminal receptacle. He j 

 did not content himself with this investigation 

 of his own, but in order to make the unl)eliev- 

 ing apiarians more inclined to accept the truth, 

 he also called in the assistance of an entonioto- ' 

 mist. At the request of Berlepsch, Leuckart, of , 

 Giessen, dissected at Seebach two workers taken ; 

 in the act of laying eggs, of which, unfortu- ! 

 nately, one individual as Leuckart reported, | 

 w^as no longer in good condition; but on the \ 

 other hand, in the second individual he was ! 

 able to prepare the sexual apparatus with its '> 

 different parts in connection, and to recognize 

 the egg-laying bee from its construction at first 

 glance. On the right side he found six, and on 

 the left five, ovarian tubes, with single mature 

 eggs. The single oviduct, as Leuckart said, 

 was without appendages. In the first-mentioned 

 egg-laying worker also, Leuckart could detect 

 no seminal receptacle, although this structure 

 is still distinctly recognizable in the queens, 

 even when the other eirtrails are almost entirely 

 dissolved by decomposition. I must here re- 

 call the fact that, as I have already mentioned, 

 the seminal receptacle is not entirely wanting 

 in the workers, but that it remains undeveloped 

 in them, and may be detected as a small append- 

 age to the oviduct by a close microscopical ex- 

 amination. Leuckart overlooked this appendage 

 in the egg-laying bees examined by him, but 

 has convinced himself, as he himself admits, by 

 subsequent investigations of the presence of tlie 

 rudimentary seminal receptacle in worker bees. 

 At any rate, it appears from the investigations 

 of Berlepsch and Leuckart, that in the egg-lay- 

 ing workers dissected by them, the seminal re- 

 ceptacle was not present in the same degree of 

 development as in the queen-bee, as in its per- 

 fectly developed state it is visible even to the 

 naked eye, of the size of a pin's head, and con- 



sequently could not have escaped the notice of 

 those two observers. 



Another cause of drone-productiveness in a ' 

 bee-hive may also be explained consistently 

 with Dzicrzon's theory. Thus in certain, but 

 undoubtedly very rare cases it happens that 

 fertilized queens in advanced age, towards the 

 end of their vital activity, become drone-bear- 

 ing, after showing themselves to be normal up 

 tothat period, as regards the production of 

 drones, females, and workers. Normal fertil- 

 ized queens, therefore, in course of time lose 

 the faculty of producing workers and females 

 The brood deposited by such old queens can 

 only be reared to male bees — certainly, accord- 

 ing to Dzicrzon's theory, for the self-evident 

 reason that the store of semen in the seminal 

 receptacle of a fertilized queen is gradually ex- 

 hausted. As a queen onlj' undertakes the wed- 

 ding-flight once in her life, and fertilizes many 

 thousands of eggs destined for the worker-cells 

 for several consecutive years, with semen re- 

 ceived by, a single act of copulation,* although 

 one or two spcrmatozoids of the male semen 

 are employed in the fecundation of one egg, 

 yet the seminal mass w^ill at last be used up, 

 and at the same time the old queen will lose the 

 factilty of laying the recjuired number of ferti- 

 lized eggs. 



From the circumstances hitherto described, it 

 will be evident how a queen, which has not 

 been fertilized, or an old queen, or an egg-lay- 

 ing worker, must act injuriously upon a colouy 

 of bees. They constantly caupc confusion in a 

 hive, as they only produce lazj'^ drones, and 

 cannot, from inaliility to produce new workers, 

 replace the lohsof workers, to which every bee- 

 hive is exposed. On the other hand, a colony 

 of bees which rejoices in the possession of a 

 vigorous fertilized queen will thrive well, as the 

 drones, the workers, and the queens required 

 for the emigration of j^oung swarms, are pro- 

 duced by her at the right time, and in the pro- 

 per proportions as to number, for which pur- 

 pose the workers prepare and arrange the ne- 

 cessary drone-cells, worker-cells, and queen- 

 cells. 



Dzicrzon's theory also includes the assertion 

 that every normally organized queen must at 

 the same time possess the power of laying male 

 or female eggi at will; that tft to say, of leaving an 

 egg xinfertilized, or depositing it fecundated at 

 will, when eiujaged in laying her eggs. 



The answer to the question, how a queen can 



know when she has to lay a male or a female 



egg, will be that instinct will tell her, and truly 



at the moment when she pushes her abdomen 



into a wide drone cell, or the narrow cell of a 



worker for the purp(;se of laying an egg. The 



disiinction of the wider and narrower cells will 



certainly be felt out by a normal queen witli 



I her abdomen, and by this sensation she will 



! knoAV that she must fertilize the egg to be de- 



' posited in a narrow cell, while she has to lay 



down the egg Avithout fecundation in a wide 



i one. By the peculiar texture of an incomplete 



' royal-cell too, a normal queen will be instmct- 



1 ^According ti a statement made to me by Dz'erzoD, a 

 i qn ea may acquire the power o^' laying fer ilizei eggs for 

 ' Uve yeaiK,"by u single uormally executed copulation. 



