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: ist, Unmated queens will lay eggs 

 that will develop, but drones always result, zd. 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 Chalcididae, a family of 

 parasitic Hymenoptera, and it has long been known to char- 



