23, 1906 



710 



American Ttee Journal 



4 nfribufed 



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Articles 



Does the Queen Determine 

 the Sex of Eggs ? 



BY "WEST VIRGINIA" 



Does the queen-bee have control over 

 the kind of egg she deposits in the 

 cell? 



The reason I ask this question is 

 this : Early last spring I asked these 

 questions, " What determines the kind 

 and sex of bees ? Does the size and 

 shape of the cell in which the bee is 

 reared have anything- to do with the 

 kind and sex of the bee ? or is it the 

 food on which the larva is fed that 

 determines the sex and kind of bee, as 

 the eggs that bring forth the three 

 kinds of bees are all laid by the one 

 queen ?" I received two answers, as 

 follows : 



1st. The sex of the bee depends upon 

 whether the egg is fertilized or not. 

 An unfertilized egg produces a drone ; 

 a fertilized egg a queen or worker. An 

 unfertilized egg in a worker-cell can 

 produce only a drone ; a fertilized egg 

 in a drone-cell can produce only a 

 worker or a queen. Under normal con- 

 ditions only unfertilized eggs are found 

 in drone-cells, and fertilized eggs in 

 worker and queen cells. The egg that 

 produces a queen is precisely the same 

 as one which produces a worker, only 

 the cell is enlarged and the bees feed 

 it through its larval existence the 

 richer food that is given to the worker- 

 larva during its first 3 days. 



2d. In our opinion it does not, since 

 there are two distinct kinds of eggs 

 laid by queens which are, namely, the 

 male and female. The female eggs 

 may be made to produce either workers 

 or queens, according as the larvas from 

 these eggs are fed the ordinary food or 

 royal jelly. The size of the cell also 

 has something to do with the more per- 

 fect development of the queen. Drone- 

 eggs, however, if transferred to queen- 

 cells, can not be made to produce 

 queens, for the experiment has been 

 tried. The instance which you de- 

 scribe probably may be accounted for 

 in this way : That is, it is thought 

 that bees sometimes transfer larvK, 

 and if that is the case, the drone-larva 

 might have been removed and replaced 

 by a worker-larva, or it might have 

 been that this worker-larva existed 

 already in one of the cells near the 

 patch of drone-brood. 



Now I will give the reason why I 

 asked the questions. I had been read- 

 ing Bulletin No. 55, and on page 9, un- 

 der "Natural Queen-Rearing," I found 

 if any female larva is taken and so 

 placed that this special food is given it 

 the resulting bee is a queen. This 

 called to my mind my experience of a 

 few years ago with a colony of bees 



that I was very anxious to have good 

 and strong by the time the honey-flow 

 came on. They did not seem to have 

 many bees working, so I opened up the 

 hive and found plenty of bees and a 

 good supply of honey on hand, lots of 

 young brood coming on, and as there 

 was room for another frame in the 

 hive, I put in an empty frame of comb 

 in the middle of the brood-nest, and in 

 a few days I examined them again and 

 found the empty comb had been all 

 cleaned nicely and every cell seemed 

 to have an egg in it, and on one side 

 of the comb there was a bunch of 

 drone-cells about as large as my hand 

 in which the queen had also deposited 

 eggs. In a few days I examined it 

 again, and on this same frame I found 

 quite a number of queen-cells in good 

 shape. As I held it in my hand I found 

 one of the queen-cells was built right 

 over the drone-cells. While examin- 

 ing it this thought came to my mind: 

 Now here are eggs deposited by the 

 same queen in different cells, one kind 

 will bring forth workers, one kind 

 drones, and the others queens. Now 

 do the size and shape of the cell have 

 anything to do with the kind and sex 

 of the bee? This particular queen- 

 cell being built over the drone-cells set 

 me to thinking, that if the worker-bees 

 had not changed the form and size of 

 the cell it would only have brought 

 forth a drone-bee, and the same of the 

 queen-cell — if it had not been changed 

 it would only have brought forth a 

 worker, no matter how much royal 

 jelly had been fed it. That was what 

 I thought at the time. 



In the same Bulletin, under " Arti- 

 ficial Queen-Rearing," I find the first 

 step to be taken is to get the proper 

 size and shape of the cell, then the 

 transferring of the egg or larva to the 

 proper size and shape cell to bring 

 forth a queen. And now I am still at 

 a loss, for in the first answer you will 

 observe that he says that the sex of 

 the bee depends upon whether the egg 

 is fertilised or not. An unfertilized 

 egg produces a drone, and a fertilized 

 egg a worker or queen. In Ans. 2 you 

 will see that he says that in our opin- 

 ion it does not, since there are two 

 kinds of eggs laid by queens, which 

 are, namely, the male and female. The 

 female eggs may be made to produce 

 either workers or queens, according as 

 the larva from these eggs are fed, and 

 the male eggs produce the drones. 



In "Modern Queen-Rearing " I find 

 this question, " How many kinds of 

 eggs does a queen lay?" The answer 

 is, "Two — fertilized and unfertilized, 

 or worker and drone." Now, if the 

 queen does actually lay two distinct 

 kinds of eggs, they will necessarily 

 have to be deposited in the proper 



kinds of cells ; that is, the worker-eggs 

 will have to be deposited in worker- 

 cells, and the male eggs in the drone- 

 cells, for nothing but a drone will 

 hatch out of a drone-cell, and only a 

 worker come out of a worker-cell, or a 

 queen out of a queen-cell. 



My experience this season with a 

 golden Italian queen from which I 

 wanted to rear quite a lot of drones, 

 caused me to bring this matter up 

 again. When her young bees began 

 to hatch I could not find any drones, 

 and upon close examination I could 

 not find a single drone-cell, sol put 2 

 frames that had quite a lot of drone- 

 cells, in the middle of the brood-nest, 

 and in a short time I had plenty of 

 drones coming on. I am of the opin- 

 ion if I had not furnished her with the 

 proper cells for her to deposit the eggs 

 in, I would not have had any drones 

 from her ; and, further, I am of the 

 opinion that the queen has to be prop- 

 erly mated before any of her eggs will 

 hatch ; when that is done, then when 

 she deposits the egg in the worker-cell 

 it will bring forth a worker, or if in a 

 drone-cell it will bring forth a drone, 

 or if in a queen-cell it will bring forth 

 a queen, as the case may be. 



I am somewhat of a Doubting Thomas 

 about an unfertilized egg bringing 

 forth anything, as it is contrary to all 

 rules. 



I have given my reasons for asking 

 the questions, and will be very glad to 

 hear from any one who has had a simi- 

 lar experience, or who can give any 

 light along this line, as I get more 

 practical information from the ques- 

 tions asked and answered in the bee- 

 papers than from any place else. 



Since writing the above I find this 

 from the pen of one of the most promi- 

 nent bee-men in this country : " Our 

 knowledge of bees is really very lim- 

 ited. Little is known concerning the 

 parthenogenetic development of drones 

 and the determination of the sex ; 

 practically nothing of the finer struc- 

 tures of bees, and very little concern- 

 ing the principle of breeding." 



Foul Brood vs. Black Brood 



BY C. P. DADANT 



I was rather startled, last winter, 

 when Dr. E. F. Phillips, in Charge of 

 Apiculture in the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology at Washington, stated at the 

 meeting of the National Bee-Keepers' 

 Association that the disease now known 

 as " black brood "contains the Bacillus 

 alvei, and is, therefore, the foul brood 

 of Europe, as described by Cheshire 

 and Cheyne, while the bacteriologists 

 of the United States Government have 

 been unable to find any Bacillus alvei 

 in the disease now known as foul brood 

 throughout the United States. (Page 

 129 of the annual report of the National 

 Bee-Keepers' Association for 1905, also 

 pages 667 and 668 of the American Bee 

 Journal for Aug. 2.) To ascertain the 

 facts more positively, I wrote a letter 

 of enquiry to Dr. Phillips Feb. 17, ask- 

 ing him about this matter. Here is a 

 part of his answer : 



"In every specimen of black brood, which 

 has been examined, Bacillus alvei has been 

 found, so that it seems evident that this is the 

 disease which was described by Cheshire and 



