38 



TRUE PARTHENOGENESIS IN THE HONEY-BEE. 



Whilst I was occupied with my task of establishing a Partheno- 

 genesis in Psyche Helix, and Solenobia triquetrella and lichenella, 

 I did not omit to bring within the limit of my investigations 

 other insects also, of which the story went that the females were 

 capable of independent reproduction in the virgin state without 

 the assistance of a male individual. It was of importance to 

 look carefully at the Honey-Bee, upon the reproduction of which 

 the most extraordinary statements have been made at all times 

 by the various Bee-keepers. Amongst these statements my 

 attention had already long been turned to that remarkable faculty 

 which was ascribed to certain Worker-Bees, and which was said 

 to consist in their being able to lay eggs capable of development 

 without copulation*. In the year 1851, therefore, I put myself 

 in communication from Breslau with various Bee-keepers, and 

 in this way became acquainted with the distinguished Apiarian 

 Dzierzon, pastor at Carlsmarkt near Brieg in Silesia. By this 

 Apiarian, who is gifted with an admirably acute power of ob- 

 servation and free from prejudices, I was furnished, partly in 

 letters and partly by word of mouth, with information upon 

 the oeconomy of Bees and the most important phenomena of 

 Bee-life, of a kind such as I could never have obtained from zoolo- 

 gical and entomological works. What surprised me most in these 

 communications, was the entirely new theory of reproduction 

 which Dzierzon had established, with which he then made me 



* [Hunter, in his paper "On Bees," Phil. Trans. 1792, refers to this opinion, 

 but had been unable to confirm it. " It is asserted by Rieni, that when a hive 

 is deprived of a queen, labourers lay eggs."..." and Wilhelm says that it is 

 the labourers only that lay drone-eggs." Hunter then quotes from Schirach : — 

 "A young queen lately hatched was put into a hive, which had been previously 

 ascertained to contain no drones, and whose queen was removed ; and yet the 

 voung queen laid eggs." Upon which he remarks — " There is no mystery in 

 this ; but did they hatch ? " The definite reply to this question, and the nature 

 of the product of the virgin-egg, are amongst the valuable facts in the present 

 work.— R. O.] 



