IN THE HONEY-HEE. (J.$ 



semen in the seminal receptacle or evacuate it at will. From 

 the investigations above referred to (p. 4) which I made upon 

 fertilized female insects, it appears that by the copulation of 

 Insects the ovaries are not fecundated, but that the seminal re- 

 ceptacle is filled with semen, and that the fecundation of the 

 egg only takes place during oviposition at the moment when the 

 egg to be laid slips by the orifice of the seminal receptacle in 

 the oviduct. With regard to this I may refer to those female 

 insects, which, after the completion of copulation, survive their 

 males in the autumn, hybernate with the ovaries imperfectly 

 developed, and only lay fertilized eggs capable of development 

 in the following spring, after their ovaries have become filled 

 with mature eggs*. Such females, therefore, preserve the male 

 semen received during copulation in their seminal receptacle, 

 keep it fresh, probably by the aid of the secretion of the appen- 

 dicular glands of the seminal capsule, and evacuate it at pleasure 

 when required during the act of laying. For this purpose par- 

 ticular voluntary muscles do really exist ; I have observed them 

 in the vicinity of the exterior of the seminal capsule in many 

 female Beetles f. In the immediate vicinity of the seminal re- 

 ceptacle of female Bees also, I have seen voluntary muscles, 

 without, however, being able to state with certainty what definite 

 functions they have to perform. From this, the possibility of a 

 voluntary evacuation of semen from the seminal receptacle of 

 fecundated female insects could certainly not be denied, espe- 

 cially as the voluntary deposition of male and female eggs by a 

 queen-bee may be proved by the brood produced from her. 

 After I had called the attention of Von Berlepsch to the exist- 

 ence of voluntary muscles at the seminal receptacle, he expressed 

 himself upon this point in the following way J :— " Probably the 

 queen has the faculty of closing the orifice of the receptacle at 

 pleasure, perhaps by the contraction of the whole vesicular mem- 

 brane, or even that of removing and somewhat retracting the 



* See upon this point my observations on hybernated fertilized female 

 Wasps and Gnats, in Wiegmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 183?), bd. i. 

 p. 107, and in Germar's Zeitschrift fur die Entomologie, bd. ii. 1840, p. 443. 



t See my investigations Ueber die Spermatozoen in den befruchtetenlnsekfcn- 

 Weibchen, in Miiller's Archiv, 1837, p. 398. tab. 20. figs. 1 & 2 </. & p. 42A. 



X Bienenzeituny , 1855, No. 7- p- 77- 



