126 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



male eggs (drone eggs) also in exactly the same 

 way; and Herr von Berlepscli actually procured 

 for me the means of doing this, aUhough at first 

 he had given me but little hope of obtaining 

 such drone eggs even in small numbers. It 

 was truly a chef-d^ (euvre to obtain drone eggs 

 at so late a season: hoAv my acute and experi- 

 enced friend, as it were, compelled a queen to 

 lay male eggs, the reader will be able to under- 

 stand from what follows. 



In No. 79 of his bee hives, Herr von Berlepsch 

 possessed a queen, which he knew to be near 

 her death, as her bees had been constantly con- 

 structing royal cells since the end of June, and 

 the queen furnished these with eggs by which 

 her loss might be replaced. Berlepsch, how- 

 ever, had not permitted the larvfe in these cells 

 to come to exclusion, and thus this aged mother 

 was still alive when I arrived at Seebach and 

 inqjiired for drone eggs. A little while before 

 this queen had laid drone eggs, but Berlepsch 

 had destroyed this drone-brood also as being 

 useless. At last the workers had enough of it, 

 and commenced no more cells. Berlepsch's 

 object in this case was to determine how long 

 the life of a queen might be prolonged artili- 

 cially. When I came to Seebach this queen 

 was still laying an occasional egg. On the 21st 

 of August Gunther received the charge to feed 

 the hive, No. 79, in the evening with fluid 

 honey. The next evening (August 23d) two 

 combs with covered worker-brood and between 

 the two an empty drone-comb, were suspended 

 in this hive. The following morning (August 

 23d) there were twentji'-seven drone-eggs in 

 this drone-comb, and about sixty worker eggs 

 in open cells of the worker combs. Berlepsch 

 had carefully ascertained previously that not a 

 single egg was present in the open cells of both 

 the foreign worker-combs when suspended in 

 the experimental hive. 



I examined these twenty-seven drone-eggs 

 which might have been about ttvelve hours old, 

 and which agreed perfectly both in their ap- 

 pearance and organization with the female eggs, 

 with the same care and by the same method 

 with Avhich I had treated the female eggs, and 

 did not find one seminal filament in any one of 

 the eggs, either externally or internally. I must 

 also add that only the seventh, thirteenth, and 

 twenty-third eggs were unsuccessfully prepared. 

 In all the rest of these drone-eggs the yelk re- 

 treated slowly and completely from the upper 

 pole of the egg-envelopes, after bursting the 

 membranes; the desirecl empty clear space be- 

 tween the micropylar apparatus and the retreat- 

 ing yelk was produced in the interior of these 

 eggs, so that if seminal filaments had been pre- 

 sent in them, they certainly would not have 

 escaped my searching and inquisitive eye. In 

 order to be quite satisfied as to this remarkable 

 negative result, and to obtain the full significa- 

 tion of it, several female eggs of the same queen 

 which had furnished these drone eggs were ex- 

 amined for comparison; for the objection might 

 certainly have been raised, that this queen 

 might have laid nothing but barren eggs, as 

 being already weakened by age and near her 

 death, she might have had no more spermato- 

 zoids in her seminal receptacle. Nevertheless, 



many of these eggs contained seminal filaments; 

 they were the tvvenlyseven eggs already men- 

 tioned by me, namely: the sixteenth to the forty- 

 second eggs. 



To this result of my Seebach investigations, 

 which proves the correctness of Dzierzou's 

 theory by direct observations, I maj^ also add 

 that Herr von Berlepsch has lately informed me 

 by lettei', that this queen subsequently after my 

 departure from Seebach, also laid female eggs, 

 from which workers were developed; but she 

 herself only died on the 19th of September, 1855. 



[For the AmericauBee Jovunal.] 



Italian Queens. 



Mr. Editor:— Allow me to give you a few 

 jottings of my experience in apiculture. 



I commenced in a small way a number of 

 years ago, to keep a few stocks of bees. At that 

 time it Avas but little trouble to take care of 

 them, as they almost invariably did well in any 

 kind of hive or gum; for the country Avas then 

 new and Avild fioAvers abundant. But soon 

 there was trouble in the camp. The bee-moth 

 began its ravages among the stocks, and in a 

 short time my prosperous colonies dwindled 

 aAvay; and it was oulj^ by the greatest care that 

 I managed to keep my stocks from being en- 

 tirely destroyed. Thus bee culture became 

 neglected, as it Avas a source of vexation and 

 no profit. 



Something had to be done, and Ave are in- 

 debted to the practical investigations of Huber, 

 Dzierzon, and others in Europe, and of the 

 Rev. L. L. Langstroth and others in America; 

 and their improvements in moveable comb 

 hives have proved that success in bee culture 

 does not depend upon luck, but upon proper 

 management. And now the careful apiarian 

 can increase his colonies at pleasure, and in or- 

 dinary seasons look for a good supply of sur- 

 plus honey to pay him for his labor. 



Last spring being convinced that the Italian 

 bees were more prolific and more easily man- 

 aged than the black bees, I commenced to Ital- 

 ianize, and had the pleasure to see at the end of 

 the season that I had increased my stock to 

 tAvice the number, all in good condition for 

 going into winter quarters. I purchased my 

 Italian queens i'rom Mr. Adam (3^rimm, of Jef- 

 ferson, Wisconsin, and they proved to be just 

 as he represented them, very fine. Mr. Grimm 

 wrote to me since his return from Italy, where 

 he had been to purchase a lot of Italian queens 

 of Prof. Mona; and as I wanted to see queens 

 just from their native Italy, I concluded to 

 make Mr. Grimm a visit. I went and found 

 him busy in preparing his extensive apiary for 

 the introduction of the queens just imported by 

 him. I had the pleasure of seeing all his im- 

 ported queens, and found them invariably (7ar7c- 

 colored; (with tAVO or three exceptions) yet 

 they showed distinctly the yelloAV stripes pecu- 

 liar to the Italians, and the workers accom- 

 panying them were beautifully marked. Mr. 

 Grimm's apiary is perhaps the largest in the 

 West. At this time he has six hundred and six 

 colonies. His home apiary numbers over three 



