160 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



sectional combs were entirely finished while 

 the lowest third or half of the extractirg 

 combs carried more bees and bees which 

 were engaged in comb building and sealing, 

 causing greater reluctance to desertion of 

 unfinished and thereby unprotected combs 

 of honey. On this account two extracting 

 stories or supers sliould be as advantageous 

 as the tiering-up system for sections ; not 

 alone in leaving storage room while one is 

 being extracted, but the length of time it 

 would take the bees to pass through the 

 escapes should be less. 



Floeence, Calif. May 10, 1894. 



Extracts From Foreign Journals Translated 

 and Condensed by 



MISS KATHEEINE M. INGLIS. 



" She is like the merchant ships ; 

 8he bringeth her food from afar."— fi/s/.£. 



NOTES ON PABTHENOGENESIS. 



N a report read at the XVIIIth general 

 assembly of the Apichltural Society of 

 Alsace-Loraiue in September, 1893, Pastor 

 Klein presents a concise summing up of he 

 opinions on parthenogenesis, for and 

 against, at the present day, and their prac- 

 tical value to the bee-keepers. 



It is well known, he says, that the queen 

 impresses her own character on the popula- 

 tion of which she is the mother. The tlieory 

 of parttienogenesis teaches us how far this 

 influence extends. It shows that while the 

 origin of the nature of the workers and the 

 young queens depends on both the queen 

 and the drone — the drones owe their exist- 

 ence and their qualities to the queen alone. 



After a hasty review of tlie general con- 

 ditions of the propagation of animal life, 

 from gemmation to the highest step of the 

 ladder known to science at present, repro- 

 duction by sexual organs, he says that the 

 two organs, the ovary and the testicle may 

 exist in the same individual, which is then 

 called hermaphrodite, and this brings us to 

 the discussion concerning the queen bte. 

 "She is," he says, " according to the pres- 

 ent point of view a female in the true sense 

 of the word ; in the tubes or folicles which 

 form the essential part of the ovaries (there 

 are two) the eggs are formed, which by the 



two oviducts penetrate into an unique con- 

 duit, called the col du vagin (vagina.) Lat- 

 erally to this conduit is found the sperma- 

 theca. Fertilization of the queen by the 

 drone, takes place once only in her life, 

 and in the act of copulation the fenaale 

 receives the spermatozoa or spermatozoids, 

 which are then preserved in the spermathe- 

 ca where they are kept living and capable 

 of movement in a liquid secreted by two 

 glands near the spermatheca. When an 

 egg passes before the orifice of the sperma- 

 theca it receives a very small quantity of 

 the seminal liquid containing the sperma- 

 tozoa, which penetrate into the egg and fer- 

 tilize it. The egg thus fertilized produces 

 either a complete queen, or an incomplete 

 queen, that is one whose genital organs are 

 too litlle developed, a worker. If on the 

 contrary, for one reason or another— opin 

 ions differ on this subject — an egg has not 

 received the spermatozoids it produces a 

 drone. Tnis is equally the case when the 

 queen is not fertilized, and when her provis- 

 ion of spermatozoa received from the drone 

 is exhausted. Thus the eggs which have not 

 received the male sperm, are procreated as 

 if by a virgin. There has been partheno- 

 genesis not by the non-fertilization of the 

 queen but by the non-fertilization of the 

 egg." Dr. Dzierzon is the leader in advan- 

 cing this theory and is warmly supported by 

 Professors Leuckart and Von Siebold. 



On the other hand there are those who at- 

 tack this theory sharply, the leader being 

 Herr Metzger, a chemist of Budepesth. 

 Metzger's theories are at present in a state 

 of variableness, and it is not easy to give a 

 clear resume of his arguments. He claims, 

 however, in the first place that the sperma- 

 theca is not only a receptacle for the sper- 

 matozoa of the drone, but has the property 

 or faculty of producing germ cells from 

 which result the filaments by means of which 

 s'le fertilizes the eggs producing workers, 

 when the sperm she has received from the 

 drone is exhausted. '" Besides the ovary the 

 queen thus possesses a fertilizing organ ; 

 she is hermaphrodite, and as she is at the 

 same time fe ale, she represents an entirely 

 new species of hermaphrodite being, she is 

 a demi-liermaphrodite. The drone eggs are 

 fertilized also, although in a different man- 

 ner from those of tlie workers. The queen 

 is a herinai)hrodite. There is no such thing 

 at parthenogenesis. These are the first 

 statements of the new theory." 



