1588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



sperm, is not furnished nor is any attempt 

 made to furnish it. All these details con- 

 densed form the following by no means sci- 

 entifically confirmed assertion: 



Drone-eggs laid by bees show exactly the 

 development which has been universally ac- 

 cepted as the rule with impregnated eggs of 

 other organisms; consequently drone eggs 

 also must be impregnated, and parthenogen- 

 esis is nonsense. 



This is a similar analogical conclusion; as, 

 freezing water expands, forming crystals; 

 crystallizing honey also expands; consequent- 

 ly honey must be water. 



We want to state right here that Dr. Kuc- 

 kuck opposes a perception of parthenogene- 

 sis which originally could not have been ex- 

 isting, because every supposition for such a 

 perception is missing. Hitherto under "par- 

 thenogenesis " was understood the origin of 

 animalcules from female eggs not impreg- 

 nated with male sperm. 



This doctrine he believes to have been fully 

 refuted by proving what nobody denied; 

 viz., that every egg, even from an unimpreg- 

 nated mother, contains some remainder of 

 male-sperm substance; wherefore it is not 

 possible to speak of unimpregnated female 

 eggs, since the same, accoi'ding to their ori- 

 gin, must be hermaphroditic. We bee-mas- 

 ters have the same idea always expressed with 

 a sentence perhaps less scientific but more 

 intelligible — drones have no fathers, but 

 grandfathers, and just for that reason we 

 take them to be of virgin birth; viz., par- 

 thenogenetically begotten. 



We believe that Dr. Kuckuck's argument, 

 in the first part of his pamphlet, has chang- 

 ed nothing of this fact, as he himself must 

 confess that life can be produced even through 

 physic- chemical processes from non-impreg- 

 nated (i. e., not with sperm-fertilized eggs of 

 the barnacle. 



Whether from this artificial impregnation 

 perfect or imperfect animalcules originate is 

 of no importance whatever so far as our ques- 

 tion is concerned. 



That development commences at all— that 

 cell-parting begins — is a parthenogenetic oc- 

 currence. 



Dr. Kuckuck's demonstrations finally re- 

 turn to Wiesmann's doctrine of the contin- 

 uance of the germ-plasms, and offer little 

 new to men well acquainted with this sub- 

 ject. The following are the main points of 

 our question: Every female egg and every 

 male sperm is hermaphroditic; i. e., consists 

 originally of female and male generating 

 substance. The female egg-cell forms in her 

 future development either one or two pole- 

 bodies, the last one being nothing else than 

 the originally male substance If the egg- 

 cell forms both pole- bodies before the im- 

 pregation, it will be lost without artificial in- 

 fluence. Under normal conditions the egg- 

 cell will be impregnated after forming the 

 first pole- body. The new male sperm causes 

 the forming of the second pole-body; i. e., it 

 expels the old male germ, bvit also egg-cells 

 exist which do not expel the second pole- 

 body, which also do not receive any sperm, 



but which notwithstanding are developing. 

 These eggs have retained the old male 

 germ, and are, consequently, if we may say 

 so, old impregnated, and usually develup in- 

 to females. (Kuckuck declares that such 

 eggs are only erroneously named "parthen- 

 ogenetic") Evidently he is referring to an 

 absolutely different conception of partheno- 

 genesis. First he constructs a new concep- 

 tion of parthenogenesis only to refute it aft- 

 erward. 



'Ihe female substance is always charged 

 negative-electric, the male substance positive- 

 electric; thus causing the attraction of both 

 (the mutual searching and finding by egg 

 and sperm). 



The stronger electric energy decides the 

 development of the sex; i. e., so far as bee- 

 eggs are concerned. If the sperm is more 

 strongly charged than the egg, a drone will 

 originate, and, in inverted order, a bee or 

 queen will be developed. 



Now, from these facts should be concluded 

 that drones by drone-mothers must originate 

 from sperm-impregnated eggs, otherwise not 

 drones but females would be developed. 

 But simultaneously this would be a direct 

 refutation of Dickel's doctrine that the male 

 germ-substance is the bearer of the female 

 sex-tendency, and vice versa. This is not 

 mentioned at all in the present pamphlet. 

 Does Dickel now disown this, his previous 

 pet idea? 



Sentences 26 and 27 on page 34 of the book 

 contain a sharp refutation but not a proof of 

 the original Dickel doctrine. 



Dr. Kuckuck, in the second part of this 

 book, treats Professor von Siebold and Dr. 

 Petrunkewitsch very harshly. 



We admit there is many a thing to say 

 against the research methods and results; but 

 against Dr. Kuckuck-Dickel's observations 

 it must be objected that they lack impartial- 

 ity. 



Note only this: "The dogma of partheno- 

 genesis in its entire extent is based only 

 and alone on illusions of two investigators " 



When Professor von Siebold, in conse- 

 quence of a defective method, could not ob- 

 tain any results, and when Dr. Petrunke- 

 witsch, in consequence of the wrong appli- 

 cation of a better research-method, arrived 

 at false deductions, these are human errors 

 to which certainly Dickel and Dr. Kuckuck 

 are also subject. Should not Dickel and Dr. 

 Kuckuck perhaps also have every reason to 

 ask themselves how their doctrine of the 

 eternal and unchangeable law (page 43) 

 stands to reason: The negative (female) at- 

 tracts always the positive (male); the posi- 

 tive repulses the positive; the negative re- 

 pulses the negative," considering that the fe- 

 male queen and the female brood- bees attract 

 themselves strongly, whereas, charged with 

 identical electric energy, they should repulse 

 each other? Right here this "eternal, the 

 whole organic governing law " fails to pieces, 

 and with it the greater part of the conclu- 

 sive force of the whole book which is almost 

 exclusively based on this law. 



Not being experts we can not discuss the 



