AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY W. F. CLARKE, CHICAGO, ILL. 



AT TWO DOLLAKS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. IX. 



r>ECEM:BEIt, IS'TS. 



No. 6 



[Translated from the Bienenzeitung.] 



The Impregnation of a Wasp. 



On the 29th of September, last year, a bright, 

 pleasant day, Herr Eppers, my assistant, an ac- 

 tive young man, who then was learning bee- 

 keeping with me, and was of very great help, 

 was watching the coming and going of the bees 

 in his fiither's garden. Suddenly, from above, 

 fell on the ground before him, two wasps. A 

 strong, large and thick-bodied wasp was setting 

 upon an elegant and thin-bodied one, and had 

 the point of its hind body inserted into the 

 hind body of the lower wasp. The body of 

 the lower and smaller wasp greatly distended, 

 and embraced part of the other. The upper 

 and laiger wasp endeavored with all its power 

 to free itself; bit the lower one with its jaws in 

 the breast, and struggled wildly to get loose, 

 while the lower one sought to get a firm hold 

 on the earth. At times the larger wasp would 

 slide from the other^whereupon both of them 

 would try with their feet to grasp the earth, 

 and endeavor to sunder the embrace. For five 

 minutes he observed these proceedings with 

 great interest, when it occurred to h'm to put 

 th(in in a glass case, and watch their further 

 proceedings. At last, after struggling for ful- 

 ly ten minutes, they were able to sunder their 

 embrace. The large wasp, apparently, was 

 uninjured ; the body of the other was, however, 

 widely distended, and had a white shred hang- 

 ing from its opening. 



When Herr Eppers came to me, on the 30th 

 of September, he brought this pair with him. 

 The wasps had been fed on honey, and were in 

 a very healthy condition, and very lively. The 

 large wasp was outwardly uninjured, and was 

 very active, but one could see that the opening 

 in the body of the other had not yet assumed 

 its normal size, indeed, it appeared to me as 

 though a portion of the body had been torn 

 away. On the first of October, despite of feed- 

 ing, I found the smaller wasp dead under the 

 glass, while the large one remained sound and 

 healthy. It grieves me that Herr Eppers did 



not kill them both while embracing each oth- 

 er, and fasten them upon a needle. 



Not being well acquainted with wasps, I am 

 in doubt as to which is the queen and which 

 the male wasp. I take the larger one to be the 

 queen, because, in the spring, in unoccupied 

 hives and elsewhere, I have found a wasp's 

 nest begun and containing eggs, with only one 

 wasp about, which resembled much the larger 

 of the pair. Hence the smaller one must have 

 been the male wasp. The kind of opening iu 

 its abdomen, and its death, despite the food 

 furnished, decides the matter in my mind. 



To me, this present occurrence is of the 

 greatest interest ; for, if my above conclusions 

 are correct, the wasp queen, in her flight, 

 mounts the male wasp, and this leads me to 

 believe that, of which fact I have had some 

 slight doubt, the queen bees, when about to be 

 impregnated, mounts the drone. On this ac- 

 count, I would with a certainty, like to know 

 whether the larger wasp was the wasp queen, 

 and will gladly send these two wasps, carefully 

 preserved in spirits, to any one able to give me 

 the information. 



The wasps were very troublesome here last 

 year. When removing the surplus honey from 

 my hives, they were continually sailing around 

 me, in large numbers, and entered the open 

 hives, and at once attacked the honey combs. 

 Upon one frame of sealed honey I found, while 

 I held it in my hand, five or six wasps, which, 

 in a moment had their heads in the cells suck- 

 ing the honey, so that I was able easily and 

 quickly to destroy them with my fingers. 



In my working house, where the combs were 

 assorted, they forced their way through every 

 crack, and were in the room in swarms. When 

 I would enter this house in the morning at 

 seven o'clock, I found the windows covered 

 with them, notwithstanding the temperature 

 was lower than it had been fsr many days, and 

 they were here destroyed by hundreds, yes. by 

 thousands. But this was not accomplished 

 without being stung. The sting of the wasp, 

 — although the sting does not remain in the 

 wound, like that of the bee, — is much more 

 severe, and continues much longer. After the 



