44 



TEE AMERICA!^ BEE-KEEPER. 



March. 



out. The development of these eggs will 

 show that workers and queens may he 

 produced from drone eggs. Another: 

 Remove from a drone comb all larvse and 

 replace with just-hatched larvae from a 

 worker comb, and give the one thus pre- 

 pared to a colony under the same con- 

 ditions as before. You will see, then, 

 queens and drones reared from impreg- 

 nated worker eggs, even after they have 

 hatched out. 



C. THEII^MANN. 



Dzierzon still holds to his theory and 

 says Dickel is wrong. Though I have 

 been convinced since 1883 that bees can 

 and will rear drones from what are known 

 as worker eggs, laid by a normal queen, 

 and during a good flow of honey I can 

 easily cause them to do so at my pleas- 

 ure — with any swarm. I was first led into 

 the secret of this in July, 1883, when I 

 hived a swarm of full-blooded Cvi)rians, 

 many workers of which returned to the 

 parent colony, leaving the swarm too 

 weak for the production of comb honey, 

 which was my aim at that time. The 



next day I united with them a second 

 swarm, but all my efforts to prevent them 

 from waging war upon each other were in 

 vain, and they decamped for parts un- 

 known, while I was engaged in caring for 

 other swanus. The following morning I 

 found the empty hives with two nice 

 pieces of comb about as large as my 

 hand — all worker cells — one of which was 

 stocked with eggs on both sides, as far as 

 the comb was sufficiently drawn out. Soon 

 after I had completed my examination 

 another swarm came out, and was hived 

 upon these frames with the .starters of 

 comb that had been deserted the day pre- 

 vious, which they accepted, and went to 

 work with a vigor. About a week later 

 I examined them an found the frames 

 filled with drone comb, except the two 

 ])atches referred to above. The one con- 

 taining the eggs now had three queen 

 cells and about 25 drone and 200 to 300 

 worker pupae, all capped. The drones 

 were all in enlarged worker cells, not one 

 of which had been missed in the distribu- 

 tion of the eggs as far as the brood ex- 

 tended 



This convinced me that, while a nor- 

 mal queen never lays drone eggs the first 

 (lay after SAarniing. bees can and do pro- 

 duce drones from what are called "worker 

 eggs." To make sure that I was correct 

 in my conclusion, tests were made on a 

 larger scale, as follows: 



On July 9, 1899, I prepared two hives 

 with starters in frames, and hived upon 

 them swarms with some of my best one- 

 year old queens. On the nth a swarm 

 with clipped queen issued; the queen was 

 caged and placed at the entrance of a new 

 hive with starters in the frames, on the 

 old stand, where the bees were allowed to 

 return to their mother. A frame with 

 eggs from the stock colonies was immed- 

 iately given them; the queen being left at 

 the entrance until sunset, at which time 

 she was taken away and the swarm re- 

 moved to a new stand; but they became 

 very restless and I returned them to their 

 former position. Upon examination on 

 the 19th I found them entirely destitute 



