86 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



NEW THEORIES. 



HAVE BEFS THE POWER OF CHANGING THE WORKER 

 EGG SO THAT IT WILL PRODUCE A DRONE? 



m 



ROPOSITION IX., Dzierzon ThPory: "All eggs 

 jierminatfd in the ovary of the queen develop 

 ^'^ as males, unless impregnated by the male 

 sperm while passing the mouth of the seminal ?ao, or 

 spermatheca, when de^ce iding the oviduct. If they 

 be thus impregnated in their downward passage 

 (which impregnation the queen can effect or omit at 

 pleasure), they devel< p as females." When this 

 theory was first promulsrated by the venerable fa- 

 ther, it no doubt s<»emt d as ridiculous as the theory 

 I shall soon notice, and could not at first be believed; 

 but time has shown this great bee-master was get- 

 ting at the facts as they really existed, and you will 

 find many nee-keepers now who deny the facts set 

 forth in father Dzierzon's propositions, so beautiful- 

 ly demonstrated by the arguments of the Baron of 

 Berlepsch. I would state the proposition thus: 

 " All eggs germinated in the ovary of the queen are 

 coated <iver with a thin mucous substance, which re- 

 ceives the impregnating male sperm while passing 

 the mouth of the seminal sac, or spermatheca, when 

 descending the oviduct, and said male sperm cm be 

 removed by the nurse bees after the eggs are depos- 

 ited in the worker cells, and the sex of the egg 

 changed." What! do you intend to throw aside all 

 established theories promulgated by Huber,Dziprznn, 

 Profs. Von Sieboldand L< uekHrt, Rarnn of Berlepsch, 

 and a host of learned bee-ma-tcrs of thp Old and 

 New World? No, my friends; I do not doubt one 

 syllable of what these learned scientific bee-masters 

 set forth, but only wish to carry their researches a 

 little further, if you pl-^ase. making new discoveries 

 in older fields. What if I state that bees can change 

 the sex of eggs at pleasure? Such is the case, and T 

 think I can truthfully assert it to he true — as much 

 so as a drone is the "son of his mamma." Under- 

 stand me, friends, that a drone egg (that is, an unfer- 

 tilized egg) will produce a drone (male) always, and 

 can hot be changed by the nurse bees, it matters not 

 how much extra tinkering they may do; but on the 

 other hand, it is a simple operation for them to re- 

 move the male sperm from the workcregg just after 

 the egg is laid, or just before the egg hatches. I 

 claim, brother bee-keepers, that if the egg is impreg- 

 nated as it passes the mouth of the seminal sac 

 when descending the oviduct, as father Dzierzon as- 

 serts, the male sperm is compelled to lodge in this 

 mucous covering of the egg, and can be removed by 

 the bees when the welfare of the colony demands it. 

 Now tor the facts in the case. I suspected this was 

 the case in 1879, but was not positive about it until 

 lf»82, and this year. To test the matter thoroughly, 

 last August I took two new worker combs built out 

 on Given foundation in wired frames, and inserted 

 them in the center of my Holy-Land colony, contain- 

 ing one of D. A. Jones's best queens, and placed a 

 Mason '/i-gal. fruit-jar feeder tilled with syrup im- 

 mediately over the frames, to get the bees to cluster 

 on them. Four days after I took them out and 

 found them about half filled with eggs, equally on 

 each side. 1 cut a bole about one inch in diameter 

 near the center of the eggs in one of the combs. In 

 the other comb near the center, I scraped ( ff a doz- 

 en or more cells to the base, or fdn., and I put these 

 comb3 la a strong queenless colony that had no lay- 

 ing queen for two weeks, and the virgin queen re- 

 moved three days beforehand. I examined these 



combs every day until the brood was all capped 

 around the hole; eight queen-cells were drawn out, 

 and all hatched nice queens; and near these cells a 

 dozen or more (I did not count them) cells drawn out 

 for drones, from which I saw drones hatch. On 

 comb No. 2, not a single drone-cell, and on the 

 comb containing the queen-cells, the drone brood 

 was on the same side of the comb on which were the 

 queen-cells, while the other side showed solid work- 

 er brood. I tried this experiment last year twice: 

 and several times this year, and I invariably find 

 some drone-cells near the queen-cells; and to be 

 certain, I tried the experiment in a hive where there 

 were drones, and the result was all worker brood, 

 which proved to my mind that bees have the power 

 to change the sex of eggs when the welfare of the 

 colony demands it. It was hardly possible that the 

 bees removed the eggs of the worker bee and depos- 

 ited one in its place, for there was only two days' 

 difference in the capping of the drone and worker 

 cells. 



I could mention several writers to Gleanings, the 

 A. B. J , and other bee-j lurnals, who have surmised 

 the same thing, but I do not know how far they car- 

 ried their experiments. 



In conclusion, let me introduce two propositions, 

 and I invite all bee-keepers to watch closely and see 

 if I am not right. 



1. Bees change the sex (female to male only) of 

 eggs, whenever the economy of the colony requires 

 it. 



2. Laying workers are found in nearly all colonies: 

 hence, a colony with a pu7-e mismated queen will 

 contain hj brid drones. B. F. Carroll. 



Dresden, Tex., Nov. 2t, 1883. 



Friend C , you may be correct in your sur- 

 mises. I confess, that from the experiments 

 I have made, and those, given by others, it 

 looks quite probable. But your proposition, 

 that laying workers are found in nearly all 

 colonies, 1 should not agree to. For some 

 time you have been working mostly with 

 Cyprians and IIoly-Land bees, if I am cor- 

 rect; and it may be that laying workers are 

 foimd in nearly all colonies of the above 

 races ; but 1 never saw a laying worker in 

 any colony containing a laying queen, until 

 I saw tliese new races. If you mean that 

 there are bees in nearly every colony contain- 

 ing workers that may become laying workers, 

 then I agree with you. I do not think we 

 are in very much danger, however, of having 

 our bees hybridized by drones produced by 

 laying workers. 



WHY BEE KEEPING DOESN'T PAY. 



ALSO SO.METniNG ABOUT HYBRIDS VS. ITALIANS. 



S BEGAN about six years ago, not knowing any 

 thmg ab >ut bees. I managed after the old way, 

 -" or it was, rather, letting the bees manage for 

 themselves; at any rate, at the end of about two 

 years they all came up missing. People said bees 

 didn't pay any more; they did no good, and it was 

 no use to bother with them. But I wasn't satisfied; 

 and having seen your advertisement in a newspa- 

 per about bees, I sent for your price list, and then I 

 sent for your ABC, and I began to see vih^ bee- 

 keeping didn't pay. I saw that we were away back 

 in the past, and almost lost in the mist of old-fogy- 

 ism and superstition; and by studying ABC, and 



