SWARMING AND HIVING. 127 



so firmly to her body, that it could not be removed with- 

 out tearing her to pieces. 



The following facts will show that the impregnation of 

 the queen by the drone, in the open air, may be made a 

 matter of ocular demonstration : Lewis Shrimplin, of 

 Wellsboro', Brook County, Virginia, purchased a mova- 

 ble-comb hive, in the Spring of 1857, into which he put a 

 second swarm. Finding, after a few days, that the bees 

 had built a number of very straight combs, he called some 

 of his neighbors together, to witness the ease with which 

 he could take out, and replace their combs. While stand- 

 ing in front of the hive, he saw the queen coming out, and 

 the idea occurred to him to catch her, and tie a very fine 

 silk thread to one of her thighs. This he accomplished 

 successfully; and as she began to ascend,* the drones 



by which means these can act hy pressure, in the interior of the body of the bee, 

 upon the neighboring penis which is to be protruded." 



" The following interesting experiment" (Parthenogenesis, p. 51) " was made by 

 Berlepsch, in order to confirm the drone-productiveness of a virgin queen. He 

 contrived the exclusion of queens at ttie end of September, 1854, and, therefore, at 

 a time when there was no longer any male's ; he was lucky enough to keep one of 

 them through the Winter, and this produced drone-offspring on the 2d of March, in 

 the following year, furnishing fifteen hundred cells with brood. That this drone- 

 bearing queen remained a virgin, was proved by the dissection which Leuckart 

 undertook, at the request of Berlepsch. He found the state and contents of the 

 seminal pouch of this queen to be exactly of the same nature as those found in 

 virgin queens. The seminal receptacle in such females never contains semen- 

 masses, with their characteristic spermatozoids, but only a limpid fluid, destitute 

 of cells and granules, which is produced from the two appendicular glands of the 

 seminal capsule ; and, as I suppose, serves the purpose of keeping the semen 

 transferred into the seminal capsule in a fresh state, and the spermatozoids active, 

 and, consequently, capable of impregnation." 



By referring to pages 38, 89, the reader will see that Prof. Leidy dissected for 

 me a drone-laying queen, nearly three years before this examination of Leuckart. 



Prof. Siebold, in 1843, examined the spermatheca of the queen-bee, and found it 

 after copulation, filled with the seminal fluid of the drone. At that time, Apt- 

 arians paid no attention to his views, but considered them, as he says, to be only 

 " theoretical atuf." It seems, then, that Prof. Leidy's dissection (pp. 34, 35) was 

 not, as I had hitherto supposed, the first, of an impregnated spermatheca. 



* Dzierzon supposes that the sound of the queen's wings, when she is in the 

 air, excites the drones. In the interior of the hive, they are never seen to notico 



