QUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 39 



Drone-Breeding Queens. — The age at which a queen is 

 too old to get fertilised has been stated by several authors 

 to be usually twenty-two days, but Berlepsch and Dzierzon 

 are quoted by Cowan ("The Honey-Bee," 2nd Edition, 

 page 141) as having occasionally found a queen to get fer- 

 tilised at thirty days old, and in one case at forty-seven days. 

 Several of my British Golden queens have failed to get fer- 

 tilised within three weeks after hatching and have then, the 

 weather improving, met the drone and become properly 

 impregnated. 



A British Golden that emerged on July 19, 191 2, when 

 killed and examined on August 28, after forty days of con- 

 tinuous bad weather, was found to be unfertilised, but full 

 of eggs, some Large enough to be laid. 



To make a fast mortem examination of a queen for the 

 purpose of ascertaining whether she has been fertilised or not 

 requires no technical skill nor special instruments. Carefully 

 tear apart the abdomen near the tip with the thumb-nail, 

 then squeeze or drag out of the severed portion on to the 

 finger the internal organs, taking care not to crush them. 

 Amongst them will be found a firm globular body about 

 i-24-in. in diameter, and of a silvery colour. This is the 

 spermatheca, or vessel for containing the millions of sperma- 

 tazoa supplied by the drone. The silveriness is due to a 

 network of tracheae which can easily be rubbed off, leaving 

 the spermatheca, which, if the queen is unfertilised, is filled 

 with a perfectly clear fluid and is as transparent as a drop 

 of water ; but, if the queen has been fertilised, is cloudy, 

 being filled with countless spermatazoa, which, under the 

 microscope, are seen to be in motion, reminding one of a 

 field of barlev in the ear waving in a breeze. 



In a considerable number of drone-breeding queens that 

 I have killed and examined it was found that the sperma- 

 theca contained spermatazoa, but it was often less densely 

 packed with them than in a normal fertile queen. Such 

 queens may produce drones only or, more often, a mixture 

 of drones and workers. The recovery of queens producing 

 a mixture has been reported, but I have never kept one long 

 enough to confirm this. It is evident that when the sperma- 

 tazoa are very deficient in numbers, recovery will not be per- 

 manent. The only way to tell for certain whether a queen 



