THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



311 



caution you not to place them under 

 large trees where they cannot receive 

 the direct rays of the morning and 

 eveninfj sun. Hives in sucli localities 

 are in damp times subject to fungoid 

 growth, soon rot and combs often 

 mold. 

 I'lainfield, Mich. 



Scientific Newt* 



The Functions of the Queen Bee. 



>liOF. C. F. KBOEH. 



Some of the most surprising facts 

 concerning the queen bee still remain 

 to be mentioned. As tliere are three 

 kinds of bees in the hive, we should 

 naturally look for three kinds of eggs 

 for theni to hatch from ; but the queen 

 lays only two kiiuls. There can be no 

 doubt as to the identity of the eggs 

 from which queens and workers 

 spring. We have waited until worker 

 eggs liatched into tiny grubs, and 

 tlien transferred these iuto cells 

 which a queenles.9 colony had enlarged 

 to rear qileens. Others have tried the 

 same ex))eriuient, and the result uni- 

 formly has been that these larvje 

 liatched out into queens. 



It still remains for us, however, to 

 account for ilie manner in which the 

 queen lays two kinds of eggs after her 

 fertilization. That a healthy queen 

 knovi's what kind of an egg she is 

 about to lay, and tliat she has the 

 power of regulating its sex, is evident 

 from the fact tliat she puis tlie egg in 

 a cell of the proper dimensions, laying 

 worker eggs in cells one-fifth of an 

 incli, and "drone eggs in cells one- 

 fourth of an inch in diameter, with- 

 out making any mistakes. The mi- 

 croscope has partly solved the mystery. 

 The ovary of the queen consists of 

 two lobes emptying into a common 

 duct, just below the entrance of which 

 there is a small vesicle, called the 

 spermatlieca, whicli Hunter, in 1792, 

 proved to be tilled with the seminal 

 fluid of the drone when copulation 

 takes place, and Leukardt estimates 

 that this fluid contains about twenty- 

 tive millions of spermatozoa. Now, 

 when the queen lays an egg, she may 

 or may not compress the spermatlieca 

 at the moment the egg passes it ; if 

 she does, two or three spermatozoa 

 tind their way into it, and tlie result 

 is a worker egg ; if she does not, the 

 egg remains unimpregnated and 

 hatches out a drone. Siebold found 

 from one to three spermatozoa in 

 every worker egg, but none at all in 

 drone eggs: and Donhoff reared a 

 worker from a drone egg which he 

 had artificially impregnated as soon 

 as it was laid. 



It was stated above that the micro- 

 scope solved the mystery but partially ; 

 for it is contrary to our common ex- 

 perience that unimpregnated eggs 

 ^ should lialcli at all. If liens, for ex- 

 ample, are Ivept by themselves, they 

 will continue to lay eggs; but these 

 eggs will never hatch. Nevertheless, 

 the evidence in the case of the queen 

 bee does not admit of a reasonable 

 doubt. In 184-5, Dzierzon found the 

 true interpretation of the observation 

 so frequently made, tliat some queens 



lay nothing but drone eggs. If a 

 queen hatches out crippled, so as to 

 be unable to fiy, she will never be 

 fertilized. If slie is prevented by bad 

 weather or other causes from flying 

 out to meet a drone for a period of 

 about three weeks after hatching, she 

 is no longer capable of fertilization, 

 probably by reason of a change in lier 

 organs of generation. In either case 

 she will lay eggs that will hatch drones 

 only. As queens grow older, their 

 supply of spermatozoa, copious as it 

 is, gradually dwindles down, and they 

 will lay more and more drone eggs in 

 proportion to the number of worker 

 eggs. Indeed, the supply is liable at 

 any time to become exhausted, and 

 the brood will then consist solely of 

 drones. Queens of the three kinds 

 mentioned have been repeatedly dis- 

 sected under the microscope, and in 

 every case the spermatheca was 

 found to be devoid of spermatozoa. 

 As it is manifestly to the disadvan- 

 tage of the bee-keeper to raise a large 

 number of drones, which are con- 

 sumers only and not producers, he re- 

 morselessly dispatches all drone-Uiy- 

 ing queens and replaces them by 

 young fertile ones. As a rule it does 

 not pay to keep a queen longer than 

 three years. 



So far as we know, a single fertili- 

 zation lasts a qneen for life. Instan- 

 ces liave been reiiorted now and then 

 that a queen liad left her hive for a 

 second mating, but owing to the ex- 

 treme difticulty of verifying observa- 

 tions of this kind, they cannot be ac- 

 cepted as facts until further evidence 

 accumulates. 



A healthy queen not only knows in 

 advance the sex of the eggs she is 

 going to lay, but slie jiroportions their 

 number to tlie wants of the colony. If 

 the weather is cool, or the colony so 

 weak tliat it cannot produce heat 

 enougli to liatcli much brood, or if 

 there is scarcity of honey, she will lay 

 but few eggs. She deposits them, 

 moreover, in contiguous cells, and af- 

 i ter liaving laid a jiatch on one side of 

 ! the comb, she crosses over on the 

 other side and lays in the cells exactly 

 opposite, so as to economize the heat 

 of the cluster. In the height 

 of the season, when an abund- 

 ance of honey is brought into 

 the hive, tlie development of eggs in 

 her ovary is proportionally great. 

 Then it often happens tliat slie is 

 pressed for room, all the cells being 

 occupied by stores or brood. As she 

 is obliged to lay the eggs as fast as 

 they come to maturity, she sometimes 

 lays two in one cell, one of them being 

 then removed by the workert ; or else 

 she simply drops tliem. Langstrotli 

 states that tlie workers in that case 

 often make a meal of them, and ad- 

 mires the self-control they must exer- 

 cise upon other occasions in abstain- 

 ing from dining upon eggs wdien they 

 are not plenty. 



The queen eats honey herself, but 

 she is also fed by the workers, proba- 

 bly with partly digested honey and 

 pollen. It is quite likely that the 

 amouiit of the food thus offered her 

 regulates the maturing of eggs in her 

 ovary. When the workers collect an 

 aduiidance of stores, they feed her 



liberally, and she then lays a large 

 number of eggs ; but when stores are 

 scant they do not stimulate her so 

 much. Before dismissing this portion 

 of the subject, it may be well to cau- 

 tion the reader not to allow liis imag- 

 ination to be captivated by the word 

 queen to such an extent as to assign 

 to her mentally the prerogatives of 

 royally. Some writers go so far as 

 to'picture her constantly surrounded 

 by a respectful circle of subjects, 

 waiting upon lier majesty, and ready 

 to carry her commands to every part 

 of the colony. It a|)pears, on the con- 

 trary, that the regulation of the af- 

 fairs of the hive belongs not to her, 

 but to the workers. They decide when 

 to swarm, how much comb to build, 

 and liow much brood to rear. They 

 determine when to raise new queens, 

 probably transferring eggs iuto queen 

 cells, and they lu'otect them from the 

 jealousy of the old queen. It seems 

 as though the sole function of the 

 queen is to lay eggs. 

 Stevens' Institute of Technology. 



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1^ "Fot-Bouille," Emile Zola's new 

 book, is creating a greater sensation 

 in Paris than either " Nana," or 

 " L'Assommoir," 30,000 copies of it 

 having been sold in Paris on the first 

 day of its publication, and the Ameri- 

 can edition is published this day by 

 T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadel- 

 phia, in a largo square duodecimo 

 volume, uniform with "Nana" and 

 " L'Assommoir," and is for sale by 

 all Booksellers, and at all News 

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 " Pot-Bouille" is intensely interest- 

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 middle classes. 



