1870.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



at noon on some fine day, when the bees are 

 briskly flying, I remove my populous colonies to 

 some other convenient location near by, and sub- 

 stitute for them the hives furnished with empty 

 combs. Externally my hives are all so nearly 

 alike in size, form and color, that the returning 

 bees do not at first perceive the change that 

 has been made, and enter without liesitation. 

 Though evidently nonplussed and confounded at 

 first when missing their stores and comi)anions, 

 and for a time ill at ease, the burdened honey 

 gatherers ere long become reconciled to the 

 change, cluster on the combs, unlade their 

 cargoes, and proceed to rear queens. The arti- 

 ficial colonies thus produced, I thenceftn-ward 

 regard as my true honey stocks. The removed 

 colonies lose nearly all their laboring force, as 

 the departing bees, repairing to their accustomed 

 stands when returning from the field, will be 

 found there in the evening ; and will next morn- 

 ing resume work with accustomed if not redou- 

 bled energy and zeal ; prosecuting it so vigorously 

 if the weather is fine, tliat the melextractor may 

 be brought into use on the following day. To 

 these honey stocks I also give any drone comb I 

 may happen to have, placing it in their hives, at 

 the sides. It will be readily filled with honey, 

 and even though it should be left empty by the 

 workers, the young queen will rarely deposit 

 eggs in the cells when she begins to lay. While 

 forage continues abundant the melextractor may 

 be employed daily. Without this invaluable 

 instn;ment the advantages of my mode of man- 

 agement could not be fully secured. How else 

 could we procure a sufficiency of empty combs 

 when needed ; or how engage to its utmost ex- 

 tent the gathering ability of such an army of 

 laborers? On the eighth or ninth day, these 

 hives must be opened and examined to destroy 

 supernumerary queen cells, and supply with 

 fresh eggs and larvae such as have failed in 

 queen raising. They must be examined again 

 two weeks later, to ascertain whether the young 

 queens lay worker eggs ; to remove such as do 

 not ; and to supply with queens, queens cells, or 

 worker eggs, any ihat are found qucenless. If 

 the queens cells are not seasonably removed, 

 swarms will be apt to issue, and defeat our plans. 

 The extra queen cells may be used for making- 

 nuclei. 



Exi^erience has taught me that artificial colo- 

 nies thus made, if the weather prove favorable 

 while pasturage abcmnds, can produce extraordi- 

 nary results, as they have no occasion to build 

 combs, and will for some weeks have no brood to 

 nurse. The old removed stocks, too, will in a 

 few days resume labor industriously, their neces- 

 sities compelling them to begin field work much 

 sooner than they otherwise would. 



This method may be employed a second time 

 the same year, in districts having plenty of fall 

 Ijasturage. 



Finally, it must be stated that in a large apiary 

 the emptying of combs by the machine, when 

 forage is plentiful, is a laborious task ; though 

 like all the other work connected with the 

 management of bees, it finds its compensation in 

 the gratifying result. Bahks. 



[Translated by W S. Dallas, F. L. S., from the " Znitschrift 

 fiir Wissenschaftliche Z'jologie," Bard XVIII. pp. .')25-532.] 



On the Law of the Development of the Sexes in 

 Insects. 



BY PnOF. VON SIEBOLD. 



The assertion made by Landois, in his prelim- 

 inary Qommunication, that the eggs laid by in- 

 sects possess no definite traces of the sexual or- 

 gans, and that the sex of the larvae is only 

 developed as male or female, after their escai^e 

 from the egg-shell, by the influence of difference 

 of food received from without, will not only 

 possess the highest interest for all naturalists 

 who attend to the rei)roductive history of organic 

 bodies ; but, as Landois applies the theory spe- 

 cially to the reproduction of bees, must also 

 produce considerable excitement among the 

 breeders of bees, as Landois in so many words 

 comialetely denies theexistenceof the very pecu- 

 liar parthenogenetic circumstances under which 

 the male bees are developed fi'oni eggs. 



Landois appeals to his repeatedly successful 

 experiments, by which he thinks it is proved 

 that all the eggs laid by a normal queen are fer- 

 tilized by her ; that in consequence of this fer- 

 tilization the development of the larviB in the 

 egg takes place ; and further, that these larvae, 

 when just hatched froin the egg, do not jiossess 

 any definite indications of sex. The sex of bees 

 is rather ( according to himl only fixed as male 

 or female, by the difference of nourishment taken 

 from without, according as the workers furnished 

 drone food to those larvte in drone cells, or 

 worker food to those in worker cells. Landois 

 transferred the bottom of a drone cell furnished 

 with an egg into a worker cell, and vice versa the 

 egg-bearing bottom of a worker cell into a drone 

 cell ; and by this means from the egg destined by 

 the queen to become a worker, the larvae fronr 

 which, in consequenceof this transfer, was nour- 

 ished with drone food, he obtained a drone ; 

 whilst from the egg destined by the queen to be- 

 come a drone, the larvae of which, in consequence 

 of a similar substitution, was brought up on 

 worker food, a worker was produced. 



Whether no error or illusion ca.n occur in 

 these experiments must be decided by practiced 

 and experienced bee-keepers, to whom I particu- 

 larly recommend the repetition of this experi- 

 ment. For my part, I can only appeal here to 

 those results wliich are to be obtained by ana- 

 tominal and microscopic investigations of the 

 larvEe of insects in course of development within 

 the egg. Taking these into consideration, I feel 

 compelled to expi'ess the greatest doubt as to the 

 correctness of the new theory set up by Lan- 

 dois. 



From the very careful investigations of va- 

 rious reliable observers in the domain of the de- 

 velopmental history of insects, we know that 

 even in the egg, simultaneously with the devel- 

 opment of the difterent systems of organs of an 

 insect larvae which has just escaped from the 

 egg-shell, we are already able to distinguish the 

 male or female sex from the difference in the 

 form of the inner reproductive organs Harold, 

 the well-known insect-anatomist, obtained the 

 following results from his accurate investiga 



