230 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



frames, one at a time, looking care- 

 fully for tlie queen, setting the frames 

 in the empty hive till all have been 

 removed ; then look carefully for the 

 queen among the bees left in the hive. 

 If tl}e queen is not yet discovered 

 I return the frames, one at a time, 

 looking them over again till I find 

 her. I rarely ever fail to find lier in 

 fifteen minutes of time. 

 Christiansburg, Ky. 



Scientific American. 



Partlieiiogrenesls in Bees. 



PKOF. C. F. KROEH. 



Kecent experiments of the Abbe 

 Giotto Ulivi call in question the the- 

 ory of parthenogenesis, which is at 

 present almost universally received 

 by bee-keepers and other entomolo- 

 gists. Briefly stated, this tlieory is 

 that queens, while yet in the viigiii 

 state, may lay eggs capable of hatch- 

 ing, and tliat such eggs always pro- 

 duce drones. After the queen has 

 mated witli a drone and stored up the 

 spermatic liquid so received in a little 

 vesicle, she may lay at will eillier 

 drone or wcn'ker eggs, according as 

 she does or does not compress this lit- 

 tle vesicle at the moment the eggs 

 pass it. Some of the evidence on 

 wliicli this theory rests may be found 

 in ail article entitled "Modern Bee- 

 Keeping, No. IV.," in the Scientific 

 iVeic.s, November, 1881, page 34.5. The 

 received theory also requires that 

 queens and drones can mate only when 

 liyiiig, and that the drones perish in 

 disengaging themselves because they 

 cannot wittidraw tlieir organ. 



All this is denied by Ulivi. He con- 

 structed flat observation hives, in 

 wliioli 3 combs were placed, one above 

 tlie other. The two sides were of 

 glass and could be darkened with 

 shutters. Each hive was furnished 

 with a closed tin portico having glass 

 slides and a trap which could be so 

 adjusted as to allow or prevent the 

 passage of queens and drones. By 

 the aid of these hives he performed 

 three series of exiieriments. In the 

 first series they were filled with bees, 

 stores of honey and pollen, w-orker 

 and drone brood, and queen cells 

 sealed and unsealed ; in the second 

 series the queen cells were left out ; 

 and in the third there were no queen 

 cells, drones, or drone brood. In none 

 of the experiments was a queen put 

 into the hive. He then made the fol- 

 lowing observations : 



In five hives the queens, without 

 leaving the hive, were fertilized and 

 laid eggs that liatched into workers 

 and drones. 



In four hives he saw the queen 

 mount a drone and curve down the 

 extremity of lier alxlomen so as to 

 bring it in contact with his virile 

 member. This organ was at least 3 

 times too thick to be inserted into tlie 

 vulva. Fertilization niust. therefore, 

 take place by mere touch. Indeed 

 the ferlilization of small Egyptian 

 queens by l.irge Italian drones could 

 take place in no other way. 



In two hives newly hatched queens 

 were allowed to tly and were captured 



on their return. They brought with 

 them the ordinary whitisli appendage 

 to their abd(nnen, which has hitherto 

 been regarded as tihe wrenched-of£ or- 

 gan of the drone and the evidence of 

 impregnation. On examination under 

 the microscope this appendage was 

 found to consist of excreta entirely 

 soluble in water and containing no 

 fleshy filaments. The drones of these 

 hives were then imprisoned, and the 

 queens returntd to their hives. They 

 laid eggs regularly, but tliese eggs 

 never hatched. Then the drones were 

 liberated in the hives, the queens 

 mounted them, and the eggs they laid 

 after that, hatched into workers and 

 drones. 



In three hives the newly-born 

 queens were allowed to fly several 

 times until they returned with the 

 usual appendage to their alxlomen. 

 Then they were confined in hives con- 

 taining no drones or drone brood. 

 One of them did not lay at all. The 

 other two laid eggs regularly, but 

 these eggs never liatched. The two 

 laying queens were then killed and 

 examined, and the three nuclei united 

 and put away for winter. The survi- 

 ving queen never laid an egg. The 

 following .lanuary she was also fmind 

 dead and examined. In March the 

 colony had neither an egg nor adrone. 

 although there had been plenty of 

 time for a fertile worker to develop if 

 there were such a thing. 



It is generally believed that one 

 fertilization lasts a queen for life ; but 

 Ulivi saw three queens that had laid 

 fertile eggs refertilize themselves by 

 mounting drones. 



He dissected five fertile queens and 

 removed mature eggs ready to be laid 

 from their oviducts just before they 

 passed the spermatic vesicle. These 

 he substituted for others that had 

 been freshly laid, removing the latter 

 to otiier cells, and isolating both from 

 the other eggs in tlie hives in which 

 the experiments were tried. The re- 

 moved eggs hatched, but those taken 

 from the oviducts did not. Under 

 the microscope, 6 days later, they 

 showed no embryos nor any indica- 

 tiini of vitality. 



He isolated queens from drones for 

 20 days and dissected them. Their 

 spermathecas were empty. 



lie caused queens to hatch in cages, 

 so as effectually to exclude drones, 

 and kept them caged for a long time. 

 On dissection their spermathecas 

 were found empty. The eggs they 

 had laid never hatched. 



He caught queens on their return 

 from tlieir so-called wedding flight. 

 Although they brought with them 

 the whitish appendage supposed to be 

 the male organ of the drone, the mi- 

 croscope showed their spermathecas to 

 be entirely empty. 



He dissected .SO queens just hatched, 

 and found their spermathecas empty. 



He captured a young queen imme- 

 diately after she had mounted a drone, 

 and fo'und her spermathecas distended 

 and filled with liquid. 



He concludes that Leuckardt, who 

 dissecteil a drone-laying queen, and 

 f(umd no spermatozoa in vesicle, but 

 only a clear liquid, erred in pronounc- 

 ing her uuinipregnated. The clear 



liquid in the spermatheca was nothing 

 but drone semen. 



Having had occasion to transfer a 

 large number of colonies from old- 

 fashioned into movable frame hives, 

 he observed that, contrary to the es- 

 tablished belief, old queens do not lay 

 a disproportionate number of drone 

 eggs. They laid fewer eggs than 

 young queens, but the number of 

 worker eggs greatly exceeded that of 

 drone eggs. 



Signor Ulivi, therefore, maintains : 



1. Queens are usually fertilized in- 

 side the hives. 



2. They are fertilized several times. 



3. Drones are not mutilated in the 

 act of copulation. It should have 

 been mentioned above that he several 

 times examined all the drones in a 

 hive in which impregnation had taken 

 place, and found none of the drones 

 lacerated. 



4. Every egg that hatches into a 

 male or a female has been previously 

 fecundated with drone semen ; hence 

 there is no such thing as parthenogen- 

 esis in bees- 



5. Every (jueen whose spermatic 

 vesicle is distended and filled with 

 any liquid whatever has been fer- 

 tilized. 



6. The eggs of a queen that has 

 never met a drone will not hatch. 



7. There is no such thing as a fertile 

 worker. 



To explain the last conclusion it is 

 necessary to add that Ulivi found by 

 experiment that fertile eggs will keep 

 through the winter and will hatch in 

 the spring. Hence some who have 

 put away colonies qiieenless in the 

 winter and found brood in them in 

 the spring have been deceived into 

 believing that a worker had assumed 

 maternal duties. 



These experiments and conclusions 

 are of the greatest scientific interest 

 as well as of practical utility. If con- 

 firmed they will entirely revolutionize 

 an important branch of the bee-keep- 

 er's industry. The author hopes to 

 have an opportunity of testing the 

 matter by experiment. Comments 

 not supported by experiment would be 

 of little value. 



Hoboken, N. J. 



[We are under obligations to sev- 

 eral correspondents for sending us 

 copies of the foregoing startling arti- 

 cle, but had anticipated them by clip- 

 ping it from the Scientific American. 

 The deductions arrived at by the Abbe 

 Giotto Ulivi are certainly astonishing 

 in their boldness, and, if even partly 

 correct in his conclusions, will not 

 only revolutionize long-accepted theo- 

 ries, but will open an interesting field 

 for experimentation to scientists and 

 breeders; if true, fertilization in con- 

 finement can be easily and certainly 

 accomplished, and the "coming bee" 

 will only await the exercise of a little 

 persevering patience, and a discrimi- 

 nating j udgment to determ iiie its most 

 desirable features. We advise, how- 

 ever — be not too credulous. — Ed.] 



