568 



THE AMERICAJSl BEE JOURNAL. 



being present, and that little watery 

 and clear and having no consistency. 

 Another sort of drones are those in 

 which the mucus surrounding the 

 spermatozoa is thick and curdy. 

 With this sort I have not been able to 

 fertilize a queen. The procreative 

 principle is present in quantity, but 

 the element in which it may be liber- 

 ated and floated into the organs of 

 the queen appears to be wanting. 



A third sort of drones are those in 

 which the sex organs are completely 

 filled with spermatozoa and an abun- 

 dant supply of albuminous fluid. It 

 is only with this latter sort that I 

 have been able to succeed in fecun- 

 dating queens. 



The facts observed seem to warrant 

 the belief that it is the prerogative of 

 the worker bees to determine the de- 

 gree of development and dominate 

 the function of the drones as they do 

 the succeeding generations of work- 

 ers and queens, the superior intelli- 

 gence of the workers ordering the en- 

 tire economy of the hive. During the 

 first half of the severe and protracted 

 drought of the past season 1 was able 

 to rear a few drones by resorting to 

 the usual methods employed for stim- 

 ulating drone-rearing, but one-third 

 of the entire number proved upon 

 trial to be of the sort which I believe 

 to be impotent, and nearly all of the 

 remaining two -thirds were of the sec- 

 ond class, not more than 5 or 10 per 

 cent, of the entire number being fur- 

 nished with the albuminous liquid 

 necessary to enable the drone to vol- 

 untarily perform the expulsion act 

 and complete the function of copula- 

 tion, the filling of the spermatheca of 

 the queen; for I am led to believe 

 that the presence of this fluid, more 

 than any odor or other influence from 

 the presence of the queen during 

 orgasm, excites in the naturally frigid 

 drones the sexual desire and assists in 

 the execution of the expulsion act, 

 and furnishes the element in which 

 the spermatozoa are floated into the 

 spermatheca, and also that the work- 

 ers intelligently and purposely deter- 

 mine the sexual development and 

 dominate the fitness, the desire, and 

 capacity of the drone, as they do the 

 physical development, the fitness, the 

 desire, and capacity of worker and 

 queen bees for the natural perform- 

 ance of their individual functions ; 

 that is to say, if drones are reared 

 during a drouth by artificially approx- 

 imating the conditions under whicb 

 the desire for drone rearing normally 

 arises, only a small percentage of the 

 number will be sufticiently furnished 

 with the food essential to complete 

 sexual development, the counterpart 

 of which is seen in a less degree in the 

 rearing of worker larvae ; and, further, 

 if there is a failure of honey, or if for 

 any reason the swarming impulse is 

 absent and no emergency exists for 

 the forming of a new colony, very few 

 of the sexually mature drones are 

 supplied with the food-elements es- 

 sential in producing the secretion 

 which excites sexual desire and sup- 

 plies the agency by which the sperma- 

 tozoa are freed and floated into the 

 spermatheca, the counterpart of 

 which is seen in the refusal of the 



worker bees to copiously supply the 

 queen with the rich glandular secre- 

 tion essential to oviproduction when- 

 ever their instinct warns them that 

 ovipositing should cease and that 

 further brood-rearing would only be a 

 waste of energy, resulting in a gener- 

 ation of consumers and non-producers; 

 for the queen is only a mother, and in 

 no sense a majesty ; only a machine, 

 not a monarch. Other facts in my ex- 

 perience might be _ mentioned in sup- 

 port of this belief. ' 



On October 1.5, Mr. Otis N. Baldwin, 

 of Clarksville, Mo., wrote me that he 

 had met with success in practicing 

 the method of fertilization described 

 in my report of last year, and that he 

 had discovered that drones were of 

 three kinds, namely : " Dwarfed, im- 

 mature, and ripe." As directed by 

 your letter of instructions of Novem- 

 ber .5, 1 went to Clarksville and inter- 

 rogated Mr. Baldwin concerning his 

 experience and observations, and I 

 herewith give the substance of his 

 statement made in reply to my ques- 

 tions. He said : 



" I first go to my nursery and take 

 the queens and cage them ; I then go 

 to the hive of drones and pick out as 

 many as I think I may need, and then 

 proceed in the manner you describe in 

 your report of 188.5. I believe the 

 whole secret of success lies in the 

 drones, and I am not able to tell how 

 old the drone must be, or how the 

 right condition is brought about, or 

 whether it was originally intended 

 that only a very small percentage of 

 drones should be capable of fertilizing 

 a queen. I have, however, discovered 

 that there are three kinds of drones. 

 First,thedrone which, when squeezed, 

 bursts with apparently dry organs of 

 generation. Second, drones which 

 burst with an abundance of seminal 

 fluid resembling a mixture made by 

 adding bromides to a silver solution. 

 Third, drones which bursting show a 

 fluid resembling albumen. With the 

 two former kinds I have not succeed- 

 ed in fertilizing a single queen. With 

 the latter I have fertilized over two 

 hundred queens the past season with 

 but few failures after I found out the 

 difference in drones. I carefully 

 grasp the thorax of the queen between 

 the thumb and finger of the left hand 

 and with the right I pick up the drone 

 which I have selected, and press the 

 thorax and abdomen of the drone un- 

 til the generative organs are expelled, 

 using as many as I need until I find 

 one in which tbe color and consisten- 

 cy of the fluid suits me. Sometimes 

 only a few of the right kind can be 

 found in as many as one hundred. I 

 place a few drops of the male fluid 

 upon the vulva of the queen, which is 

 eagerly received, using one, and only 

 one, drone for each queen. I have 

 fertilized queens by this method that 

 were not a day old, and others more 

 than fifteen days old, and after clip- 

 ping their wings, introduced them to 

 their colonies, and they began laying 

 in from six to eight days, and were 

 satisfactorily prolific. 



" As nearly as I could tell, those 

 fertilized early were more prolific than 

 those treated after they were ten days 

 old, but the right condition of the 



drone is very essential. It is very 

 diflicult to get drones ripe enough be- 

 fore the first half of May and after 

 the first half of August, but during 

 June and July this method may be 

 operated with gratifying results. 

 Queens fertilized by this method and 

 directly introduced into a queenless 

 colony are rarely ever molested by 

 the bees. I clipped the wings of the 

 first twenty or twenty-five queens 

 that I succeeded in fertilizing by this 

 method, and finding the method 

 worked to my satisfaction and with 

 but few failures, I clipped no more 

 wings." 



The experience here detailed, as far 

 as it relates to the procreativeness of 

 drones, is in agreement with the facts 

 within my own observation already 

 set forth. The claim that a very large 

 number of queens were successfully 

 fertilized as set forth, and that, too, 

 with but few failures in the whole 

 number attempted, is lacking in the 

 element of absolute certainty and 

 completeness of detail which would 

 entitle it to acceptance as of any 

 scientific value. Mr. Baldwin assured 

 me that " there could have been no 

 mistake about it;" but in order to ef- 

 fectually guard against all possibility 

 of the test being abortive, all the 

 queens claimed to have been artificial- 

 ly fecundated should have had their 

 wings thoroughly clipped before they 

 were liberated. But the fact that the 

 repeated successes were realized when 

 the young queens were clipped upon 

 being taken from the nursery-cage, 

 never having had opportunity to bear 

 their weight upon their wings, is an 

 encouraging step in advance towards 

 the solution of the most diflicult prob- 

 lem in practical bee-keeping. Anoth- 

 er season, with the presence of favor- 

 able conditions, will determine the 

 practicability and value of this 

 method. 



FEBTILIZATION IN CONFINEMENT. 



Eealizing that natural methods 

 nearly always possess advantages 

 over artificial methods, I determined 

 if possible to gain control of repro- 

 duction by the fertilization of queens 

 in confinement. That some inexpen- 

 sive and practicable method might be 

 devised by which the natural mating 

 of queens in confinement could be 

 secured, has very long been hoped for 

 by all progressive apiarists. Very 

 many attempts, in a variety of ways, 

 some of which involved the outlay of 

 considerable sums of money, have 

 been made, but difllculties apparently 

 insurmountable were encountered. 



1 removed the queens from 6 colo- 

 nies which I had had confined in the 

 house for experimenting with bees 

 and fruit— a house 10 feet by 16 feet, 8 

 feet high, partly covered on the sides 

 with wire-cloth, a wire-covered sash 

 in the gable, and large screen wire- 

 covered doors in each end. These 

 were strong colonies, which had been 

 confined in this house for thirty days 

 and had learned the location ot their 

 hives, and from these the bees flew 

 daily in great numbers, returning fre- 

 quently to their hives. Into these 6 

 colonies I introduced virgin queens 

 hatched from cells which I had placed 



