THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



75 



significant to tlie apiarians, because there Avcre 

 still many things in the history of the repro- 

 duction of the bees, which could not be ex- 

 plained with this knowledge of the sexual rela- 

 tions of these animals. Many practical apia- 

 rians looked upon this anatomical proof of the 

 sexes of bees merely as tlieorctical stuff, and 

 returned to their so-called practical way, which 

 they imagined to be the riglit one, without re- 

 gard to these facts, preferring to explain the 

 different sexual functions in a perfectly arbi- 

 trary and unnatural fashion, according to their 

 own individual and often very limited views. 



After I had, in the year 1837, ascertained the 

 existence and siguificalion of the seminal re- 

 ceptacle in female insects, and in 1843 called 

 attention to this reservoir of the semen in the 

 queen bee, by the functions of which many phe- 

 nomena in the reproductive activity of the bees, 

 which had hitherto remained problematical, or 

 had been incorrectlj'^ explained, might be prop- 

 erly conceived, these investigations exerted no 

 particular influence upon the perverted views 

 of most of the apiarians. They probably paid 

 no further attention to them, as theoretical 

 stuff, and j-et by the recognition of the func- 

 tion- of the seminal receptacle, a phenomenon 

 in the bee-hive which had been a source of won- 

 der from time immemorial, could now be cor- 

 rectly explained." 



In Hunter's article, pages 185, 186-188, are the 

 following remarks: "In the introduction to this 

 account of bees I observed, that several things 

 in their economy might escape us if we consid- 

 ered them alone, but might be made out in ot'aer 

 insects; an instance of this occurs in the im- 

 pregnation of the female bee. The death of the 

 males in the month of August, so that not one 

 is left, and yet the queen to breed in the month 

 of March, must puzzle any one not acquainted 

 with the mode of impregnation of the females 

 of most insects. 



Insects, respecting the males, are of two 

 kinds; one, where the male lives through the 

 winter, as well as the female, and tJ\^ other 

 where every male of that spesies dies before the 

 winter comes on; among which maybe consid- 

 ered, as a third, those where both male and fe- 

 male die the same year. Of the first, I shall only 

 give the common fly as an instance; of the sec- 

 ond, I shall just mention all of the bee tribe; 

 and the third may be illustrated in the silk- 

 worm The mode of impregnation in the first, 

 is its being continued uninterruptedly through 

 the whole period of laying eggs, Avhile in th« 

 second, the copulation is in store; and, in the 

 third, the female lays up, by the copulation, a 

 store of semen, although the male is alive; of 

 this I shall now give an explanation in the silk- 

 moth, which may be applied to the bee, and 

 many others. In dissecting the female parts 

 of the silk-moth, I discovered a bag, lying on 

 what may be called the vagina, or common 

 oviduct, whose mouth or opening was exter- 

 nal, but it had a canal of communication be- 

 tween it and the common oviduct. In dissect- 

 ing these parts before copulation, I found this 

 bag empty, and when I dissected them after, I 

 folmdit full." 



To know whether theliagin the female silk- 

 : moth, whi-'h increased at Ihe time of copula- 

 tion, was filled with the •^emen of the male, he 

 •■ made the following experiment: 

 \ "I took a female moth as soon as she had es- 

 ; caped from the pod, and kept her on a card till 

 i she began to lay. I then took females that were 

 fully impregnated before they began to lay, and 

 j dissected out that bag Avhich I supposed to be 

 the receptacle for male semen; wetting a cam- 

 ! el's hair pencil with this matter, I covered the 

 ( ova as soon as they passed out of the vagina. 

 j These ova were carefully laid on a clean card, 

 : and kept till the ensuing season, when they all 

 j hatched at the same time with those naturally 

 ; impregnated. This proves that this bag is the 

 I receptacle for the semen, and gradually de- 

 i creases as the eggs are laid." 

 I In a note on page 180, Hunter says that 

 : "all these experiments on the silk-moth were 

 I begun in the summer of 1767," thus showing that 

 j seventy years before Siebold, he was acqiiaint- 

 i ed with the existence and signification of the 

 ! seminal receptacle in female insects. From his 

 remarks on page 172 it is evident that he believed 

 the queen to be impregnated in the open air. 

 I That an unfecundated female could lay eggs 

 j which would produce drones only, and tliat 

 I all unfecundated eggs produce drones, is nearly 

 i all that we know on this subject in addtion 

 ' to what we find suggested by Malpigi, Bazin, 

 ; Dobbs and Hunter. 



I The production of males from unfecundated 

 eggs is the discovery of the celebrated German 

 apiarian, Dzierzon, and while it has thrown a 

 flood of light upon many hitherto mysterious 

 points in the physiology of the honeybee, some 

 of which eviclontly perplexed the mind of Aris- 

 totle more than 2,200 years ago, it has been of 

 ereat importance to the bee keeper in the prac- 

 tical management of his apiary. 



Prof. Joseph Lcidy, of Philadelphia, examin- 

 od in January and February of 1852, the sperma- 

 theeas of two fertile queens taken from my 

 apiary. See my communication in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Society of Natural Sciences, Phil- 

 adelphia, for February, 1852, p. 49. He also 

 made a microscopic dissection of a drone-laying 

 cpieen in the autumn of the same year. See 1st 

 edition of my work on the honey bee, published 

 in May, 1853, pp. 37, 43. In August of the same 

 3'car, see 8d edition of the work, he made an 

 examination of a j'oung cpicen which had the 

 male organs still adhering to her. In this dis- 

 section all the essential characteristics of the 

 impregnated and unimpregnated spermatheca 

 were acurately set forth. 



Before these examinations, Dzierzon had set 

 forth their characteristics as seen by him with 

 the naked eye. His conjecture that the poison 

 bag in the worker becomes the spermatheca in 

 the queen, shows that he had not at that time 

 made any use of the microscope. Still he is 

 entitled to full credit for his acute observations, 

 and any one can repeat them both upon impreg- 

 nated and unimpregnated queens. I frequently 

 make such dissections both with and without 

 the microscope, for the gratification of those 

 who visit my apiary. 



