IN THE HONEY-BEE. 41 



fecundated, but the seminal receptacle, that little vesicle or knot 

 which in the young queen is filled with a watery moisture, is 

 saturated with semen, after which it is more clearly distinguish- 

 able from its white colour. The activity of the ovary in the 

 normal state only commences after copulation, but is not neces- 

 sarily caused thereby ; hence many unfecundated queens lay no 

 eggs at all, whilst others lay drone- eggs; and even workers do 

 the latter, although, from their want of a seminal receptacle, I 

 regard them as quite incapable of copulation. I am convinced 

 that such eggs are sufficient for the production of drones, whilst 

 the egg from which a queen or a worker is to be developed must 

 come in contact with the filled seminal receptacle. This is cer- 

 tainly only a hypothesis, and will probably remain so, but one to 

 which every close observer will be no more able to refuse his 

 assent, than the hypothesis of Copernicus, that the earth turns 

 round upon its axis ; for all the mysterious phenomena in the 

 commonwealth of the Bees are very simply explained by it." 



In a separate Bee-book, Dzierzon subsequently summed up 

 his views upon the reproduction of Bees as a regular theory in 

 the following manner * : — 



" Therefore, and this must be well borne in mind, in the 

 copulation of the queen, the ovary is not impregnated, but this 

 vesicle or seminal receptacle is penetrated or filled by the male 

 semen. By this, much, nay all of what was enigmatical is 

 solved, — especially how the queen can lay fertile eggs in the early 

 spring, when there are no males in the hive. The supply of 

 semen received during copulation is sufficient for her whole life. 

 The copulation takes place once for all. The queen then never 

 flies out again, except when the whole colony removes. When 

 she has begun to lay, we may, without scruple, cut off her 

 wings; she will still remain fertile until her death. But in her 

 youth, every queen must have flown out at least once, because 

 the fertilization only takes place in the air; therefore no queen, 

 which has been lame in her wings from birth, can ever be per- 



* Theorie und Praxis des neuen Bienenfreundes, oder neue Art der Bienen- 

 zucht mit dem giinstigsten Erfolge angewendet und dargestellt von Dzierzon, 

 2 aufl. (without place of printing) 1849, p. 10(5. Dzierzon expressed himself' 

 in exactly the same way in a Supplement to the Theorie und Pnuis, published 

 in 1852, p. 4 et seq. 



