1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1587 



other papers of nails, so that each tirae he 

 wants to use any he can open paper after pa- 

 per till he tinds what he wants. 



Instead of picking each nail out of the pa- 

 per it's an improvement to take a mouthful 

 at a time, or to scatter a small quantity at a 

 time on the bench, or put them on a plate; 

 handier to pick up when a little scattered; 

 but when on the bench they have a way of 

 scattering more than you like, and a plate 

 has a way of landing on the floor upside 

 down. 



Now look at the two nail-boxes in the pic- 

 ture. I got the idea from seeing, at a tin- 

 ner's, boxes made on the same principle, 

 only made of tin. I hardly think I need tell 

 bow they are made. The picture tells that. 

 But it may be no harm to give measurement 

 of parts, although one can make boxes larger 

 or .sirnllcr. (^nn1pr iivh ^tnfT i^ used, nnd 



CONVENIENT BOXES FOR HOLDING NAILS. 



the different pieces measure: 10^X4^; 41X4^; 

 4|X3; 4|Xli; and each side is 8X4^, cut out 

 as you see. 



Take down a box that is hanging up; lay 

 it on its back and give it a few shakes, and 

 you have the nails scattered out nicely in the 

 shallow part, unless the box is too full. The 

 box hanging up is too full, but I wanted the 

 nails to show in the picture. When through 

 using, hang the box up on its nail on tne 

 wall, and it's there without any danger of 

 tumbling down and taking up the least pos- 

 sible room. 



I made a dozen such boxes, hung them up 

 on the wall of the shop in two rows, one row 

 above the other, each box marked to show 

 the kind of nail in it, with a corresponding 

 mark at its nail on the wall, and was happy. 



Alack and alas! my happiness didn't contin- 

 ue Some one took a box from the shop and 

 didn't return it to its place. Then some 

 nails of the wrong size were thrown into the 

 box rather than throw them away. Then 

 another box was similarly maltreated, and 

 thus it went till the boxes were scattered to 

 all points of the compass with all sorts of 

 nails, and some things that were not nails in 

 them. 



Moral: Shoot the first man that meddles 

 with your nail-boxes. 



Marengo, 111. 



IS PARTHENOGENESIS A MYTH? 



Some of our readers may not krow what the Dickel 

 theory is, so that, by way of a preface to what here 

 follows, it may be stated in as few words as possible 

 thus: Fertile queens only lay fertile eggs. The 

 worker-bee alone determines the sex. The worker- 

 bee makes the sex by means of a glandular secretion 

 which is supplied at a certain stage of the larva, and 

 this is continued till the latter is sealed up. He ad- 

 mits that the eggs of laying workers and drone-laying 

 queens are from unfertile eggs, but he holds drones 

 from these are lacking the procreative powers. 



The article which follows is a translation of a criti- 

 cism of Prof. Kuckuck's new book entitled " There is 

 No Parthenogenesis," a work that defends the Dickel 

 theory. This criticism of the book appeared in 

 Bienenzeitung (Leipsic). It is evidently the work of 

 an expert on the subject.— W. K. M. 



With zeal worthy of acknowledgment 

 Dickel tries to obtain support from the sci- 

 entific world for his opinion that all eggs laid 

 by an impi'egnated queen are also impregnat- 

 ed, and that the salivation through the bee 

 not only starts life in the impregnated egg 

 but also influences the sex; which means that 

 parthenogenesis, in the sense established 

 through investigation by von Siebold, is un- 

 tenable. The Russian physician, M. Kuc- 

 kuck, with his present pamphlet, wants not 

 only to prove the correctness of Dickel'sopin- 

 ion, but wants also to I'efute fully partheno- 

 genesis. He wants to prove that also the 

 drone eggs laid by bees must be impregnat- 

 ed, and that with male sperm derived from 

 the drone, because the development of these 

 drone-eggs shows all the characteristics of 

 impregnated eggs. Unfortunately neither 

 Dr. Kuckuck nor F. Dickel furnishes the 

 proof nor even the slightest intimation how 

 the impregnation of these eggs is or could 

 be done. 



This doctrine at present is only an analog- 

 ical conclusion from generalized laws as 

 observed by different scholars on other or- 

 ganisms, and it is up to the reader to form 

 his own opinion as to the possibility of these 

 laws to be applied also to the bee. But even 

 if any such possibility must be considered as 

 out of the question for other (anatomical) 

 reasons, that does not matter to the two au- 

 thoi's; they simply say, "According to our 

 opinion, which is confirmed by results from 

 researches, the drone-egg must be impreg- 

 nated . ' ' 



This is the weak point in their conclusion. 

 The direct scientific proof of how the male 

 sperm comes into the bee-laid egg. whether 

 through impregnation of the bee by the drone 

 or through impregnation of the egg with 



