210 Prof, von Siebold on the Law of 



This identity of the nourishment of the young brood of the 

 workers and drones seems to have been entirely overlooked by 

 Landois. A difference between the food of the drones and 

 workers, such as Landois lays so much stress upon, does not 

 exist. As, from the observations of our most experienced 

 breeders of bees, the workers are able to rear a queen from a 

 worker larva before it is six days old, and as the workers can, 

 by means of royal food, procure a queen from every Qgg 

 normally deposited in a worker-cell, but not from an Qg^ nor- 

 mally deposited in a drone-cell, it follows, as a matter of 

 course, that in bees the sex is definitely fixed beforehand even 

 in the Qgg by the efiectuation or omission of fecundation, and 

 not merely defined by the difference of the food of the larva. 



The development of the eggs laid by unfertilized queens, 

 from which, according to the experience of all observant bee- 

 keepers, only drones are produced, is not regarded as parthe- 

 nogenesis by Landois; at least the term " parthenogenesis " is 

 avoided by him, although he speaks of a primary and a secon- 

 dary drone-broodedness, the cause of which is thus explained 

 by him : " that eggs are laid by queens or workers, which are 

 furnished with scanty formative materials^ from which weahly 

 larvce must be developed, and consequently drones." 



Whence does Landois conclude that these eggs laid by drone- 

 brooded queens and workers are furnished only with scanty 

 formative materials ? By what investigation has Landois 

 arrived at the knowledge that from such eggs weakly larvae, 

 and consequently drones, must be developed? Has Landois 

 convinced himself by careful observation and exact dissection 

 of such drone-mothers of the absence of male semen in their 

 sexual organs? Our scientific bee-keepers could state with 

 regard to a great number of drone-brooded queens, with cer- 

 tainty, that they had remained unfecundated, and that they 

 consequently laid unfertilized eggs, but, as experience has 

 proved, capable of development, from which, whether depo- 

 sited in drone- or worker-cells, only drones are developed. 

 The dissection of such drone-mothers, which has been often 

 enough undertaken by people well acquainted with the sub- 

 ject, has always proved that the seminal receptacle, whether 

 normally developed or rudimentary, contained no trace of male 

 semen. 



As Landois refers to the fact that, with regard to the pro- 

 position that " drones always proceed from unfertilized eggs," 



Sclimid imd Klein, ' Leitfaden fiir den Unterricht in Theorie und 

 Praxis einen rationellen Bienenzucht,' 1865, p. 26. 



Vogel, ^ Praktisches Handbuch der Bienenzucht/ 1866, p. CO. 



