94 Dzierzon’s Theory. 
male bees. This strange anomaly—development of the 
eggs without impregnation—was discovered and proved by 
Dzierzon, in 1845. Dr. Dzierzon, who, as a student of prac- 
tical and scientific apiculture, ranks very high, is a Roman 
Catholic priest of Carlsmarkt, Germany. This doctrine— 
called parthenogenesis, which means produced from a Virgin 
—is still doubted by some quite able bee keepers, though the 
proofs are irrefragable: 1st, Unmated queens will lay eggs 
that will develop, but drones always result. 2d, Old queens 
often become drone-layers, but examination shows that the 
spermatheca is void of seminal fluid. Such an examination 
was first made by Prof. Siebold, the great German anato- 
mist, in 1843, and later by Leuckart and Leidy. I have 
myself made several such examinations. The spermatheca 
can easily be seen by the unaided vision, and by crushing it 
on a glass slide, by compressing with a thin glass cover, 
the difference between the contained fluid in the virgin and 
in the impregnated queen is very patent, even with a low 
power. In the latter it is more viscid and yellow, and the 
vesicle more distended. By use of a high power, the active 
spermatozoa or sperm cells become visible. 3d, Eggs in 
drone-cells are found by the microscopist to be void of the 
sperm-cells, which are always found in all other fresh-laid 
eggs. This most convincing and interesting observation 
was first made by Von Siebold, at the suggestion of Ber- 
lepsch. It is quite difficult to show this. Leuckart tried 
before Von Siebold, at Berlepsch’s apiary, but failed. I 
have also tried to discover these sperm-cells in worker-eggs, 
but as yet have been unsucessful. Siebold has noted the 
same facts in eggs of wasps. 4th, Dr. Donhoff, of Ger- 
many, in 1855, took an egg from a drone-cell, and by arti- 
ficial impregnation produced a worker-bee. Such an 
operation, to be successful, must be performed as soon as 
the egg is laid. 
Parthenogenesis, in the production of males, has also 
been found by Siebold to be true of other bees and wasps, 
and of some of the lower moths in the production of both 
males and females. Adler has shown that this agamic 
reproduction prevails among the Chalcidide, a family of 
parasitic Hymenoptera, and it has long been known to char- 
