no 



THE AxMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



ail old one he lias involved himself iu a maze 

 altogether inextricable. 



He contents himself with believing that a snf- 

 ficieut portion of the seminal fluid to cause the 

 egg to generate is incorporated with it in its 

 ibrniation; that one of t!ie ovaries will produce 

 <h-oiies, and the other workers; that the anomaly 

 of drone-laying queens arises from the imperfect 

 development of that part of the ovaries which 

 produces eggs for workers; that the queen has, 

 indeed, a seminal sac, although anatomists have 

 repeatedly demonstrated that this sac is sur- 

 rounded by "a muscular tissue, by the contrac- 

 tion of which compreasion is effected and the 

 contents Ibrced out through the discharge pipe 

 into the oviduct." And yet Mr. H. does not be- 

 lieve that the queen has a full control over the 

 outlets of the bilateral oviducts, of which no 

 anatomist has ever, to my knowledge, intimated 

 that they were capable of either muscular con- 

 traction or compression. What a monumental 

 faith the originator of such a theory as this must 

 have possessed? And were it not tor the above- 

 mentioned second objection he has raised against 

 Mr. Wagner's theory, we might, without com- 

 punction, have passed him by with a most be- 

 nignant apiarian smile. 



Now, it need not be denied that all motion 

 and locomotion in animated nature depends di- 

 rectly upon the will in each individual creature, 

 as much as the free exercise of the will in each 

 individuality upon certain instinct or reason, to 

 account for the ahility of the queen to lay her 

 eggs in either drone or worker-cells at jileasure. 

 For I cannot discover the least propriety, neces- 

 sity, or adaptability of means to end in denying 

 the queen her legitimate instinctive power — vol- 

 untary contractility. 



If, however, it be said that the point at issue — 

 the movement of the muscles comes under the 

 head of organic contractility, I reply that organic 

 contractility in the point at issue, is directly de- 

 pending upon the will of the queen also, anUthat 

 that apparent encroachment of will upon organic 

 movement is the very link which has so long and 

 so sedulously been sought after. 



How, then, is the fertilization of the queen's 

 eggs eff'ectedV It is an undeniable truth, that in 

 animated nature, rcs])iraMon as well as the call 

 of nature, can, in a measure, be suspended at 

 will. The former we suspend at every act of 

 swallowing, and the latter we may^ suspend at 

 every act of voiding. Now, it requires no great 

 stretch of thought to believe that by the sense of 

 feeling, the queen in the act of ovipositing ex- 

 actly knows when an egg reaches the proximity 

 of the spermatheca, and that by the sense of see- 

 ing she is equally well enabled to distinguish a 

 drone cell from a worker cell. If, then, it be 

 her pleasure to supply a drone cell, she applies 

 a little voluntary contractilily, closes the dis- 

 charge-pipe of the spermatheca, and allows the 

 egg, just as it comes from the egg-bed, to glide 

 past it into the cell, where, as all admit, it will 

 develope into a drone. On the contrary, should 

 she please to supply a worker cell, she causes the 

 egg not to glide past the spermatheca, but directly 

 before its discharge-pipe, when, by the repilitious 

 acts of voluntary contractility and recidivation, 

 she fertilises this egg and all succeeding ones to be 



laid in similar cells, icith more or less seminal 

 filaments, according to the more or less perfect 

 conformation andfulness of her spermatheca, and 

 the inore or less complete control she has over tht 

 muscular net-work surrounding the same. All 

 eggs thus fertilized become worker eggs, and 

 when deposited into worker cells, are developed 

 int© workers or queens, just as the good people 

 of the hive then may will it. . 



The link is inserted. In my opinion, it fills 

 the theoretic vacuity of Dzierzon's theory. 



In order, therefore, to give the objector to this 

 theory time to collect and arrange his arguments 

 against it, I may say that by it we can account 

 for the origin and multiform appearance of the 

 fragmental dash of impurity in Italian bees, with- 

 out the assistanceof either Mr. Kirby's ^'■smashed 

 up drones^'' theory, or Mr. Thomas' theory of 

 absorjjtion and circttlation, and thus proceed to 

 state the indisputable fact that there are to be 

 found in Italy, as well as in Switzerland and 

 Germany, bees of the common variety. 



That some black bees there as well as here and 

 elsewhere, do make at times their appearance 

 simnltaneouslj^ with three- banded, two-banded, 

 and one-banded bees in one and the same hive, 

 need not here be denied by either Prof. Mona, 

 Mr. Uhle, or Mr. Grimm. For it just so hap- 

 pens that I am acquainted from my youth up 

 with a gentleman not far off, who raises no 

 queens for sale, who is reliable and who claims 

 "to be qualified to form an opinion respecting 

 Italian bees" also, and who, likewise, (I can 

 sustain the allegation myself) has seen Italian 

 bees in their native clime a long while before 

 either Mr. Uhle or Mr. Grimm had wound their 

 way over the Alps. The trouble with which 

 Italian bees in Italy might be purified from any 

 objectionable impurity, would be, comparatively 

 speaking, nothing. But please, sir, without im 

 puting any motives of deception or dishonesty to 

 any person, to recollect that scientific bee-culture 

 in Italy is of quite recent date, and comparatively 

 speaking, nothing either. 



Now, if I may be permitted to state the fact 

 that strolling dealers in Italian bees and peram- 

 bulating agents of foreign exporters, in order to 

 obtain the wished-for number of queens, are com- 

 pelled to buy their bees for many miles around 

 their respective bee depots from peasants, who, 

 ignorant as a class to such a degree, that in order 

 to disprove the fact of the queen's laying eggs at 

 all, they could at best quote Anthony Conova's 

 treatise on bees, and say with him they don't 

 believe it because they have never discovered 

 any egg shells on the bottom board or before the 

 hive, it must be evident to the least reflecting 

 that this much complained of fragmental dash of 

 impurity is not at once and altogether eradicated 

 by the simple act of purchase and exportation. 



Will not Prof. Lewis Bonner and the other 

 semi-Italian gentleman who bought up thirty 

 stocks of Italian bees for Mr. Parsons, of Flush- 

 ing, in 1859-60, give me a lift "w therearV I 

 assure them that although this peculiarly con- 

 venient locality be not at all ^'protected by an 

 ample applicatioii of Prof. Flander^s celebrated 

 bee-charm,'''' they need not fear to be stung by 

 either American or imported '■'■high-breds.^'' I 

 know it. 



