1878. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



39 



(Drone. Continued from lust month.) 

 One of the most wonderful things about 

 the drone or male bee, is that it is hatched 

 from an egg that is nnimpregnated. So 

 wonderful indeed is this, that the matter 

 has been for ages disputed, and is, by many 

 who have not looked into the matter and ex- 

 amined the evidence, even now. "What we 

 mean by unimpregnated, is that queens tliat 

 have never met the male bee at all, will lay 

 eggs, and these eggs will hatch, but they al- 

 ways produce drones, and never workers. 

 Those who have had the care of poultry, are 

 well aware that the hens will lay eggs right 

 along, if no cock is kept in the yard at all ; 

 and if I am not mistaken, a pullet would 

 commence and lay perhaps nearly her usual 

 number of eggs, if she had never seen a 

 male bird. Now, nearly the same is true 

 with regard to the queen bee. If she fails 

 to meet a drone during the first 30 days of 

 her life, she usually begins to lay eggs, but 

 she seldom lays as many, or with the same 

 regularity, as a fertile queen. The eggs the 

 hen lays, if she is allowed to sit. never pro- 

 duce any chicks at all. The eggs laid by the 

 queen, under the same circumstances, as I 

 have said before, always produce drones. 

 There is one more fact connected with the 

 common fowl ; if the male bird is put into 

 the yard with the hen for one day only, good 

 fertile eggs will be laid for many days, pos- 

 sibly a whole Jlaying. If a black Spanish 

 cock should get among a flock of white hens 

 for only a single day, all the eggs laid for 

 many days afterward will produce chicks 

 with more or less black feathers on them. I 

 give these statements from actual facts. 

 The point I wish you to observe, is that the 

 eggs, of even the common fowl, are fertil- 

 ized as they are laid by the hen, or a few 

 days before, possibly. "With the fowls, one 

 meeting with the male bird suffices for the 

 fertilization of an egg daily, for a week, or 

 more ; with the queen bee. for her whole life 

 of three or even four years. 



I do not know whether the hen has the 

 power of laying fertile or unfertile eggs at 

 will, or not ; perhaps not, but I do know that 

 a queen bee lays fertilized eggs, and unfer- 

 tilized, rapidly, and in succession, alterna- 

 ting from one kind to the other. Skillful 

 microscopists have carefully dissected eggs 

 from worker cells, and found the living 

 spermatozoa in inuiibers fi'om one to five. 

 These living spermatozoa, were precisely 

 identical with those found in dissecting a 

 mature drone. Again; every egg a queen 

 lays, passes a little sack containing a minute 



quantity of some fluid; the microscope 

 shows that this fluid contains thousands of 

 these spermatozoa. Is it not wonderful that 

 these spermatozoa should live four years or 

 more in this little sack, awaiting their turn 

 to be developed into a higher life whenever 

 they should be required to fertilize the egg 

 that is to produce the worker bee V Very 

 well ; now the egg that is taken from a drone 

 cell, contains no trace of spermatozoa. 

 Therefore it, like the egg of the common 

 fowl, unimpregnated, should never hatch. 

 But my friends, it does hatch, and produces 

 the drone. The first glimpes we get of the 

 little bit of animated natme, is the tiny 

 speck alive at the bottom of the cell. Does 

 he grow out of nothing, without parentage, 

 at least on the paternal side ? If his mother 

 was an Italian, he is also Italian ; if a black 

 queen, he is also black. We shall have to 

 conclude, perhaps, that he is the son of his 

 mother, and nothing more. The egg that 

 has never been impregnated in the usual 

 Avay, must, after all, have some living germ 

 incorporated in its make up, and this germ 

 comes only from the mother. The great 

 skill and proficiency with the microscope, 

 required to make these minute examina- 

 tions, is such, that but one or two have ever 

 succeeded in exploring as far as I have men- 

 tioned, and it is somewhat like our investi- 

 gations in the polar regions. Who among 

 us, will educate himself for the work and 

 carry it along. 



Drones are also hatched from eggs laid by 

 worker bees. These are usually smaller in 

 size than from those laid by a queen, and 

 the question as to whether they are capable 

 of fertilizing queens, so as to be of some 

 value, like other drones, is one that I believe 

 has never been decided. Some facts have 

 been brovight to light that seem to be pretty 

 good evidence on both sides of the question, 

 but so far as I know, nothing very definite. 

 I confess, that I would not want to make 

 use of them, even if they were good, for I 

 want the strongest, healthiest, and largest 

 drones I can get. For a further account of 

 the mothers of these queer drones, see fer- 

 tile WORKERS. 



After what I have said, you will perhaps 

 see how clear it is, that the drones are in no 

 way affected by the fertilization of the 

 queen ; or. in other words that all daughters 

 of a purely fertilized Italian queen, produce 

 drones absolutely pure, whether iLey have 

 been fertilized by a black drone or not. 



Until quite recently, we have had no eosy 

 way of repressing the production of drones,, 

 in far greater iiumbers than could ever be 



