1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



133 



imens the short tongues refuse to respond to 

 pressure ; hence I infer that, when the bees 

 were put into the alcohol, the tongues were 

 retracted, and became hardened in that posi- 

 tion.' J !.^^'- - 



I!|have examined some alcoholic Italians, 

 and find some of them quite as short as the 

 Apis dorsata. 



^ My reason for asking that live bees be sent 

 was that they could be examined in their nor- 

 mal condition ; and I suspect that that is the 

 only way to arrive at trustworthy results. I 

 do not regard the measurements on Apis dor- 

 sata above at all reliable. Is there any one 

 who can send me two dozen dorsatas alive in 

 a shipping-case? Even if they should die 

 they will still be fresh when they arrive, and 

 unhardened by alcohol. I am interested in 

 this question, and should like to follow it 

 through to trustworthy results. 



As to the stone, you make the common mis- 

 lake. It is a piece of petrified coral, frag- 

 ments of which are often found over the cen- 

 tral parts of the United States. It is an old 

 coral which grew there when the ocean cover- 

 ed that part of North America, millions of 

 years ago, in the Silurian age. I recall finding 

 them scattered over the fields when a lad, a 

 little to the southwest of you, as I was born 

 and grew up on a farm over in Crawford Co , 

 near you. If you desire to keep the stone (it 

 is'very common in Ohio) I'll send it back with 

 many thanks for letting me see it. From the 

 remark in Gleanings I thought it was some- 

 think new. If you do not care for it I should 

 like to put it into my collection. 



Storrs, Conn., Dec. 26, 1899. 



■', [I would explain that I sent a number of 

 alcoholic specimens of Apis dorsata, that we 

 received from Mr. W. E. Ranibo, to Prof. 

 Koons, asking if he could not measure their 

 tongues. This he has done, and the result is 

 here shown. Of course, I should have pre- 

 ferred to send him live specimens, but as we 

 were not able to obtain any we had to take 

 what we could get. — Ed.] 



TTTf^T^^' 



ATING OF QUEENS. 



Does it Ever Take Place a Second Time ? an Inter- 

 esting Case. 



BY PROF. C. F. HODGE. 



Referring to discussion on p. 52 of Glean- 

 ings (jan. 15), I may state the facts a little 

 more explicitly, and then give my own inter- 

 pretation, which differs from any of the three 

 you suggest. And, first, as to the double mat- 

 ing in this one case, there is no chance of mis- 

 take. I saw this queen emerge from her cell, 

 watched her between about 10 a. m. and 2 p. m. 

 each day until she flew, and for some days aft- 

 er. I saw her go out the first time, timed her 

 trip with watch in hand, 8 minutes, saw her re- 

 turn with organ of drone, saw the bees catch 

 hold of and draw it out. Whether the bees 

 took away too much, thus making it necessary 

 for her to fly a second time, I can not say. I 

 could plainly see a filament slowly pulled out 



of the queen's oviduct, and, under the stretch 

 caused by the bees tugging at it, it appeared 

 nearly '4 of an inch long. The bees then did 

 a great deal of brushing and combing and feed- 

 ing their queen, and, as I have said, within 15 

 minutes she went straight out of the hive and 

 off. In a somewhat shorter time, 5 minutes, 

 she again came home with a second male or- 

 gan, appearing exactly like the first. The bees 

 immediately set about removing it exactly as 

 before. If they took away too much the first 

 time they did so the second, so far as I could 

 see. But the queen soon began to lay, and all 

 her eggs hatched workers, so fertilization was 

 accomplished. 



I do not feel that it is worth while interpret- 

 ing a single case. It should certainly not throw 

 any doubt on the time-honored one-flight theo- 

 ry, until, at least, a number of such observa- 

 tions are recorded. My own casual explana- 

 tion is simply that, for a brief period, the queen 

 feels the need of fertilization and the impulse 

 to fly. If the male organs are removed prompt- 

 ly, before her body has adjusted itself to the 

 change, the impulse persists and she flies again. 

 Females of many animals have these definite 

 periods of impulse to mate, and this, we may 

 say generally, persists for a longer or shorter 

 ticne after actual fertilization occurs. As to 

 evidence for such double fertilizations being 

 somewhat common, I have had one hive, 

 among the seven or eight, in which some of 

 the bees appeared to be pure Italian, and the 

 rest almost as pure native, the queen be- 

 ing a daughter of Italian stock. This would 

 not show, of course, if both or all the drones 

 happened to be either black or Italian. About 

 Worcester there are probably more black bees 

 than any thing else, and pure stock is sure to 

 hybridize very quickly. I may add that a bee- 

 keeper here, to whom I related the circum- 

 stance, said immediately, "That explains why 

 some of my queens lay both black and Italians. ' ' 



When we get more observation hives in our 

 schools we may gain additional light on a good 

 many such interesting questions, which we old 

 folks have no time to follow up. It happened 

 to be vacation, and I was determined to learn 

 that one queen's story from A to Z. I wonder 

 how many others in the history of apiculture 

 have watched a queen continuously enough to 

 be absolutely sure that she mated only once. 



Worcester, Mass. 



[If Prof. Hodge were not a scientific man, 

 one who realizes the value of careful and ac- 

 curate observation, I should be almost inclined 

 to discredit his statement ; but as he person- 

 ally saw what he relates, I think we shall have 

 to admit that at least one queen was fertilized 

 twice. The probabilities are that the first 

 meeting of the drone was rendered ineffective 

 by the act of the bees in pulling away the 

 drone organ. 



It would be interesting to know whether 

 this is liable to happen with any queen ; but 

 even then I should feel morally certain that, 

 after the organs of the drone were once absorb- 

 ed by the queen, this would be the last time 

 she would take her flight. I have never yet 

 seen a well-authenticated case from a compe- 



