40 PARTHENOGENESIS 



of reproduction ; but these were constantly set aside by him, and 

 with such convincing reasons, which could be brought into 

 accordance both with the anatomical relations of the Bees and 

 with the physiological laws of insect and animal life in general, 

 that at last I could no longer hesitate in admitting the correctness 

 of Dzierzon's theory of reproduction. 



Dzierzon expressed his views upon the reproduction of Bees 

 in the year 1845 in the Bienenzeitung of Eichstadt*. but without 

 particularly emphasising the most important details of his theory, 

 and without elevating it into a peculiar theory. I consider it 

 necessary to reproduce the views expressed by Dzierzon in that 

 Journal, word for word. They run as follows: — 



" Presupposing, what will be referred to and proved in the 

 following Numbers, that the Queen (female bee) to become good 

 for anything must be fertilized by a Drone (male bee), and that 

 the copulation takes place in the air, I express the conviction, 

 from which all phaenomena and mysteries may be perfectly 

 explained, that the drone-eggs do not require fecundation ; but 

 that the cooperation of the Drones is absolutely necessary when 

 Worker-Bees are to be produced. Whilst in the higher animals 

 the male is the perfect and ruling creature— the bull keeps to- 

 gether and as it w r ere governs the herd of cattle, and the cock 

 does the same by the hens — the reverse of this takes place in 

 Insects. In the Wasps, Hornets, Humble-Bees, Ants, and espe- 

 cially in the Bees, the perfect female forms the central point and 

 holds the swarm together. As even the drones are subordinated 

 to her, they are also in themselves altogether imperfect creatures, 

 for the production of which so many forces and conditions are 

 not necessary even on the part of nature as for the production 

 of the queen, and, what is the same thing, of the workers. (The 

 ancients even appear to have indicated this by the denomination 

 Fucus.) The truth of this assertion appears at once from the 

 fact, that as everything that is capable of the more difficult and 

 greater effect may also produce the easier and smaller one, so 

 every stock, which is in a condition to produce worker-bees, may 

 also produce drones, when suitable cells are not wanting in the 

 nest; but not inversely. In copulation the ovaries are not 



* See Bienenzeitung, herausgegeben von Dr. C. Burth und A. Schmid in 

 Eichstadt. Jahrgang i. 1845, p. 113. 



