126 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



have intercourse with the drone. Huber first discovered 

 that she returned Avith the male organ torn from the 

 drone, and still adhering to her body. If it were not for 

 this arrangement, her spermatheca could not be filled, 

 unless she remained so long in the air with the drone as 

 to incur a very great risk of being devoured by birds. 

 In one instance, some days after the impregnation of a 

 queen, I found the male organ,* in a dried state, adhering 



* On page 50 of the English translation of Prof. Siebold's work on " Partheno- 

 genesis " (that is, production without intercourse with the male) " of Moths and 

 Bees," may be found the following extract of a letter to Prof. Siebold, dated 21st 

 July, 1853, from the celebrated German Apiarian, the Baron Von Berlepsch. 



" I succeeded, to-day, in impaling upon a pin, a queen which had flown out to 

 copulate, just as she was about to re-enter the hive. The signs of copulation stand 

 far out. * * * Will you have the kindness to settle, by dissection : 1, if any, and 

 what, parts of the drone occur in the royal vulva; and 2, what is the condition of 

 the seminal receptacle. If there be parts of the drone in the vulva, people will, 

 at last, admit that the drones are the males, and that the copulation takes place 

 outside of the hive. * * * Moreover, if you find the seminal receptacle filled with 

 semen, Dzierzon's hypothesis according to which the ovary is not fertilized, but 

 the seminal receptacle filled with male drone-semen, by copulation is raised into 

 evidence." 



Prof. Siebold says, that "he was able to establish, that those definitely formed 

 parts in the vagina of the queen were nothing but the torn copulative organs of a 

 male bee (drone). With this condition of the external sexual organs of the queen, 

 the state of the internal generative organs also agreed exactly, for the seminal re- 

 ceptacle which is empty in all virgin female insects, was, in this queen, filled to 

 overflowing with seminal filaments (spermatozoids)." 



I give as interesting, in this connection, the following extract from my journal : 

 " August 25th, 1352. Found the male organ protruding from a young queen; 

 could not remove it without exerting so much force that I feared it would kill her. 

 Dr. Joseph Leidy examined this queen-bee with the microscope, so as to demon- 

 strate that to use his words ' it was the penis and its appendages of a male, 

 corresponding, in all its anatomical peculiarities, with the same organs examined, 

 at the same time, in other drones. The testicles and vasa deferentia of these 

 drones were found to be full of the spermatic fluid. The spermatheca of the 

 queen was distended with the same semi-fluid, spermatic matter.' This one exam- 

 ination demonstrates that the drones are males, and that they impregnate the 

 queen by actual coition." 



Prof. Siebold further says : " As in the act of copulation of the bees, the penis 

 of a drone is completely protruded outwards, and as no particular muscular appa- 

 ratus exists for the extrusion of the penis, the circumstance that the drones copu- 

 late in flight, has an important signification. * * * During the movement of the 

 wings, the different air-sacs of the tracheal system of the drone are filled with air, 



