406 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



showing great power in flight. The 

 head is remarlvably small and taper- 

 ing, and if, as is probable, tlie length 

 •of tongue is in proportion to the size 

 -and shape of the head, we may liope 

 that this bee will be able to rifle tlie 

 ared clover of its luscious treasures. 

 Its wei^'ht, however, will bend over 

 the stoutest stalk of clover, and this 

 may create difliculty in operating on 

 the blooms. Most likely any advan- 

 tages we may obtain from the ad- 

 vent of this insect, will be tlie result 

 ■of judicious crossing. The drone is 

 •comparatively small, not so long, I 

 think, as the worker, but aldermani- 

 'Cally corpulent, like all drones. I 

 ■would liazard the opinion that he is 

 not too large to mate witli the bees 

 •we have. The possibility of a cross 

 the other way is more doubtful to my 

 inind, tor if the Java queen is large 

 and long as compared with the worker, 

 like the races of bees which we now 

 have, she must be not only an Araa- 

 ■.zonian, but a Brobdignagiaii crea- 

 ture. If we get even a hybrid variety 

 \trom apis dorsata, our hives must be 



f:reatly enlarged, and if we breed 

 hem pure, our hives must be quad- 

 rupled in size. Frames, honey ex- 

 tractors, comb foundation machines, 

 •perforated zinc, honey sections, etc., 

 must all \)e made on a larger scale. 

 If the mandibles are long, strong, and 

 sharp in proportion to the other parts 

 ■of this bee's body, I am afraid they 

 ■will puncture fruit, and then there 

 ■will be trouble in the camp. At pres- 

 ent we have pretty clear evidence that 

 our bees do not puncture fruit, but 

 •only avail themselves of the sweet 

 j'uices liberated by wasps, hornets, 

 and birds. It will be an evil day, if 

 it ever comes, when fruit culture and 

 hee-keeping cannot flourish, side by 

 side. 



■ But, what of the sting V Tliat's 

 ■my cliief trouble in view of the com- 

 ing ofiipis doiaida. It is all I can do 

 to get along v^-ith the moderately- 

 sized slings that now menace tlie ad- 

 venturous bee-keeper. Wlien hun- 

 ■dreds of thousands of live daggers 

 ■half an inch long are whirling around 

 •in the air, each with a gigantic in- 

 .■sect " ready, aye ready '' to \ise it on a 

 .poor bee-hated" amateur apiarist like 

 myself, 1 think I shall sigh with tlie 

 poet, 



" O for a lodge ia some vust wilderness," 



and betake myself to parts unknown 

 .and unfrequented by apis dorsuta. 

 Sut Mr. Jones assures "me that they are 

 •very amiable insects, and though 

 •formidably armed do not know ttie 

 use of tlie'ir deadly weapon. It may 

 i>e so. We know that the horse and 

 the elephant are ignorant of their 

 ■power, or they wouid not submit to 

 •be bully-ragged about by that tyrant 

 anaii. But suppose a cross between 

 the Cyprian and Ja^'a. Horror of 

 :horrors ! There will be nothing for 

 it but to take a back seat in 



" Some boundless contiguity of shade " 



too dense for a bee to penetrate. 



I am not much of a microscopist, 

 and Jones' microscope is not of very 

 high magnifying power, but if my 

 observations were correct, the sting 

 ■ot apis dorsata, like that of the bum- 



ble-bee, is without barb. Let us hope 

 it will also be found to be without 

 virus, and that the " big bee of Java " 

 will be like the big Shanghai fowls in 

 disposition, as compared with the 

 game breeds. 



Among other attractions that may 

 be trumpeted forth to attract a large 

 attendance at the next annual meet- 

 ing of the North American Bee-Keep- 

 ers Society, there is this, that Mr. 

 Jones will exhibit his four precious 

 Java bees on that occasion. Mean- 

 time, for the next four months, I 

 shall have the high satisfaction of 

 holding some such a colloquy as this 

 with not a few of my bee-keeping 

 rivals: " Have you seen apis dorsataf" 

 "Xo,"" Well, I have." 



Listowel, Ont., June 6, 1882. 



Rural Xew Yorker. 



PartUeiiogeiiesis iu Bees. 



PUOF. A. J. COOK. 



In the current volume of the Scienti- 

 fic American, page 186, there is given 

 an abstract of some experiments of 

 one Abbe Giotto Ulivi, in reference 

 to parthenogenesis among bees. The 

 conclusions drawn from these experi- 

 ments are as startling and absurd as 

 would be the assertion that the pro- 

 geny resulting from mating the horse 

 and the ass would be anything but a 

 mule. The statements made not only 

 contradict some of the most 

 thoroughly settled truths of science, 

 but actually contradict the every-day 

 experience and observations of every 

 intelligent and observing apiarist. I 

 should not think that these wild as- 

 sertions were worthy of notice, only 

 that some of the papers, even the bee 

 papers, give the article a place, and 

 make editorial comments that would 

 lead one to think that there was good 

 ground for the opinion that Huber, 

 Dzierzon, Langstrolh and a host of 

 others were all mistaken, and did not 

 see what they said they saw. Is it 

 possible that one unknown man's 

 mere assertion shall weigh more than 

 the testimony of many widely known 

 and thoroughly reliable men, and 

 they, too, often men of the very 

 higliest scientilic attainments V 



The following are the points which 

 are denied, most of which are easy of 

 demonstration, and some of which 

 are proved by the daily experience of 

 every bee-keeper : 



1st. Queens are impregnated out- 

 side of the hive, and while on the 

 wing ; 2d, they are fertilized but once ; 

 3d, drones are killed in mating, and 

 some of the genital organs torn off ; 

 4th, the eggs which hatch into drones 

 are not impregnated, and so the law 

 of parthenogenesis is true among 

 bees, so far as the drones are con- 

 cerned ; 5th, eggs from virgin queens 

 will hatch and all of the bees be 

 drones; 6th, some worker bees will 

 lay eggs. Such bees, kno^o'n as fertile 

 workers, have never mated, and all 

 the eggs from them produce drones. 



That queens are fertilized without, 

 and not within the hive, is very easy 

 of demonstration. In fact it is de- 

 monstrated in nuciei hives by the 



hundred every year. I have demon- 

 strated it in several ways. I have 

 clipped one of the wings of queens 

 many times, just as they emerge from 

 the cells, and in every case I had a 

 drone-laying queeu, if she laid at all ; 

 thinigli "in many cases there were 

 scores of drone.sin the hive. Of late 

 years I have had only drones in one or 

 two of my choicest hives, having 

 taken care to keep them from all the 

 other hives ; and in my small or nuclei 

 hives I seldom have any drones. In 

 such cases, if Ulivi is correct, fecun- 

 dation would never occur ; yet I almost 

 never fail to secure fertilization. I 

 have often shut the young queens in 

 the hives, often with drones, and 

 and never would I secure fertilization 

 till she was allowed to fly forth. 

 From our every-day experience it is 

 hardly possible' to "refrain from the 

 conclusion that I'livi is a fraud. 



It is just as patent that queens are 

 only fertilized once. My queens that 

 are in droneless hives, and with wings 

 clipped so thattbey cannot fly out, are, 

 of course, utterly precluded from a 

 second mating, and yet they remain 

 fertile and lay worker eggs just as 

 long as other queens that have good 

 wings, or are surrounded with drones. 



It is not so easy to prove that drones 

 are killed or mutilated in the sexual 

 act, though I have little doubt that it 

 is true. 1 have seen several cases of 

 bumble bee mating, and in every case 

 the drone was killed. The honey bee 

 is so nearly related to the bumble bee 

 that it IS very certain that the same is 

 true of it. Again, the drones, if held 

 in the warm hand on a warm day, 

 wi'l experience orgasm, and at 

 once die. Mr. D. A. Jones found 

 that he had lost a great many more 

 than the usual number of queens as 

 they flew forth to mate, on his islands 

 last summer. This is easily explained 

 on the theory that the drone expires 

 in the sexual act and falls to the 

 ground and drags the (jueeii with him. 

 Ill the water she would not be able to 

 rise, and of course would be lost. 



Of course, I do not positively know 

 by actual observation that the white 

 thread that hangs from a queen as 

 she comes from mating, is a portion 

 of the male genital organs. But I 

 have found, with many others, that 

 queens I had shut in the hives for 

 live days after they had emerged from 

 the pupa state, and then let out to fly, 

 would, without exception, commence 

 laying if the white thre;id was ap- 

 pended to the abdomen, even though 

 there were no drones iu the hive, and 

 would fail as surely to lay worker 

 eggs, when the white tilament was 

 absent. I have had several experi- 

 mental queens reared in the early 

 spring, before there were any drones, 

 and they would fly out every day and 

 return, but never carry the Hlament 

 attached to the abdomen. Any one 

 can easily try this, and will become 

 convinced very soon that with no 

 drones there will be no thread. 



That drone eggs are fecundated, ' 

 will be very surprising to the many 

 apiarists that have reared queens 

 when there were no drones, in late 

 fall and early spring, and found that 

 there were abundant eggs laid, but 



