AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



825 



Then I opened a jar and told him to 

 taste it, which proved to his taste to be 

 O. K., but he said it wouldn't stay so 

 unless it was boiled ! I knew that some- 

 thing was wrong, and I kindly asked 

 him if he would show me where they 

 kept their store honey, that was not on 

 the counter. Down cellar we went. It 

 was cold and damp — such a place to 

 keep honey ! Before I left that place I 

 delivered a lecture — not short — and sold 

 him my honey, and it is my strong be- 

 lief that no more honey is kept in that 

 cellar. 



It would be well for every one who 

 sells honey, to warn them not to keep it 

 in cellars. Freezing and thawing will 

 sour both extracted and comb honey. 

 The producer should guard against it, 

 as it injures the honey. 



Welton, Iowa. 



Difference in Eggs of Impreg- 

 nated Queen and a Virgin. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY C. J. ROBINSON. 



Query 843, on page 598, propounds 

 three several questions: First, "Are 

 the eggs in an impregnated queen differ- 

 ent from those of a virgin?" This ques- 

 tion, thus formed, calls only for a 

 " Yes," or a "No," yet in the 22 an- 

 swers, from as many bee-keepers, but 

 three make square answers, thus : Two 

 say " No," and one says " Yes." 



Evidently the • propounder queried 

 thus : Are the eggs " in any way 

 changed" by copulation? He might 

 well ask, " Is a queen in any way 

 changed by being impregnated ?" The 

 proposition refers to two several queens 

 — an impregnated and a virgin. The 

 problem is, Are the ovary organs 

 changed at all in a queen by her being 

 impregnated? If her egg organs do not 

 become changed "in any way," her vir- 

 gin eggs, developed after copulation, are 

 not in any way different from eggs in 

 her " matrix " before meeting a drone. 



How it is — the wonderful modus oper- 

 andi of nature — that an egg-producing 

 bee in due form (queen) comes forth, 

 must, in'the order of creation, remain a 

 profound mystery. Belief based on 

 speculation is but vanity, yet the mys- 

 tery is speculated upon in such an over- 

 weening way by some writers that most 

 readers verily believe that such writers 

 are inspired. 



When so-called virgin queens come 

 forth they remain immature — incompe- 



tent to reproduce, so that the race may 

 be perpetuated, until, per chance, they 

 meet and become matured by receiving 

 from the drone the male organ— that 

 which secretes and furnishes spermatozoa 

 to change the egg, thus rendering her 

 fructified by being impregnated. 



The notion that a virgin queen re- 

 ceives from a drone into her "sac" 

 sufficient spermatic fluid to impregnate 

 her worker eggs during an existence of 

 six or more years, is the sum of ignor- 

 ance. Spermatic fluid introduced into a 

 queen, unless immediately utilized, 

 would be like any foreign matter. Cer- 

 tain it is that queens generate and re- 

 generate eggs through their ovary 

 ducts, and after receiving the male or- 

 gan they are fully matured so as to gen- 

 erate spermatozoa with which to im- 

 pregnate virgin eggs. The drone intro- 

 duces his spermatozoa-generating organ 

 into the queen, the organ being so 

 formed that it at once becomes grafted 

 on to the membranes or walls of the 

 cavity left vacant naturally in immature 

 queens. 



Some half a century ago certain Ger- 

 man bee-scientists applied the term 

 " parthenogenesis " to queen-bees not 

 having copulated. If the definition of the 

 term (a compound word), as recorded 

 by lexicographer R. Owen, and copied 

 by the revisers of Webster, is correct, 

 there is no valid or tenable ground for 

 claiming that honey-bees are like the 

 generna to which parthenogenesis can 

 properly be applied. The hire-bees be- 

 long to the family of insects of the order 

 Hymenoptera (q. v.), belonging to the 

 section of that order called Aculeata, in 

 which the female (workers) are not 

 furnished with an ovipositor. Hence 

 the order Apis mellifica cannot perpet- 

 uate their restricted genus only by im- 

 pregnation of eggs by male sperm. Not 

 so with the order of insects that pro- 

 create from eggs produced by females 

 without being impregnated with male 

 spermatozoa. 



The term " parthenogenesis " (gr.) is 

 a compound word, signifying virgin and 

 young, and is defined by Prof. R. Owen 

 thus: "The successive production of 

 procreating individuals from a single 

 ovum (egg) without any renewal of fer- 

 tilization." Certain German writers 

 claimed that parthenogenesis really re- 

 lated to the propagation of honey-bees, 

 because so-called virgin queens produce 

 ovum that hatch male bees only ; but 

 the race cannot be multiplied or per- 

 petuated without the element furnished 

 by the male sex. Not a virgin queen 

 can be begotten without a "renewal of 



