IN THE HONEY-BEE. 51 



was able to establish, that those definitely-formed parts in the 

 vagina of the queen were nothing but the torn copulative organs 

 of a male bee (drone). An intimate union of the two sexes of 

 Bees must therefore have taken place here. The remaining 



the Bees, so that they might be at last convinced that the import of the drones, 

 queen, and workers in a colony of Bees could only be rightly estimated by 

 taking these conditions into consideration. That this was not superfluous, 

 was shown me by the thanks, repeatedly expressed in the Bienenzeitung, with 

 which my instruction was received by many friends of Bee-keeping. I thought 

 it my duty also to render this service to the Apiarians, when I remembered 

 what has been made known up to the present day as to the various erroneous 

 opinions asserted by Bee-keepers with regard to the history of reproduction in 

 the Bees (see supra, p. 2). To show into what wrong paths those Bee-keepers, 

 who, entirely mistaking the objects laid before them by nature, only wish to 

 pass off their own peculiar opinions, have got, I quote here literally from 

 Magerstedt's Pratkisches Bienenvater (oder Anleitung zur Kenntniss unci Be- 

 handlung der Bienen, 1842, p. 68) what he teaches as the natural history of 

 Bees : — " The queen is the mother of all the worker-bees. Of these the greater 

 number are of the male, the smaller number of the female sex. She lays the 

 eggs of both kinds in the small narrow cells of the building. The care of the 

 brood is the duty both of the male and female worker-bees, but at the same 

 time they are assisted, for the furtherance of the work, by the sexless drones, 

 and for this reason the number of the drones is greatest at the time when the 

 most brood occurs. Their business is especially to warm the brood, and to 

 elevate the temperature of the hive during the time when the workers are 

 occupied out of doors. When, with a deficiency of nourishment and a diminu- 

 tion of the business of taking care of the brood, their presence is no longer 

 necessary, they are expelled. The queen, however, does not copulate. Her 

 first fertilizing flight agitates her ovary, and by this means she becomes capable 

 of laying fertile eggs." This book, tainted with such gross errors heaped one 

 upon another, has recently made its appearance in a third edition. Von 

 Berlepsch has assured me that he sent its author my letter, in order that he 

 might change his opinion. But now, in this third edition, which appeared 

 in 1856, we may read at p. 181 : — " The queen is the mother of all the worker- 

 bees ; a greater number of the workers is of the male than of the female sex. 

 Nature has distinguished both sexes externally. The queen is rendered 

 capable of reproduction, not by copulation, but by the agitation of her ovary, 

 and by its actions during the fertilizing flight, which is to be repeated several 

 times. The female bees are also rendered capable of laying eggs by flying 

 out, and by the agitation of their ovaries thus produced. From the eggs laid 

 by the female bees, drones are produced, and these being perfectly asexual, 

 do not cooperate in the business of reproduction, but in the care of the brood." 

 And also at p. 2/9 : — " Certainly they (the drones) are not necessary for the 

 fertilization (of the queen)." What shall we say to such a complete ignoring 

 of the truth ? 



E 2 



