116 THB BEK-KEEPBR'S GUIDE ; 



and females. Any person can easily demonstrate this fact for 

 himself. The summer plant-lice are hatched within the 

 mother-louse, or are ovoviviparous. It is easy to capture a 

 young louse just as it is born, and isolate it on a plant, when 

 soon we shall find it giving birth to young lice, though it has 

 never even seen any louse, male or female, since birth. Bon- 

 net observed seven successive generations of productive vir- 

 gins. Duval noted nine generations in seven months, while 

 Kyber observed production exclusively by parthenogenesis in 

 a heated room for four years. So we see that this strange and 

 almost incredible method of increase is not rare in the great 

 insect world. 



In two or three days after she is impregnated, the queen, 

 under normal circumstances, commences to lay, usually 

 worker-eggs. It is rare not to find eggs by the tenth day 

 from the birth of the queen. The queens rarely go three 

 weeks before laying. Such tardiness does not recommend 

 them. It is reported that giving unhatched brood will start 

 the queen to laying. If this be true, it is doubtless explained 

 by her receiving different food from the workers. If the con- 

 dition of the hive impels to no further swarming that season, 

 no drones will be required, and so only worker-eggs will be 

 laid. In many localities, and in certain favorable years in all 

 localities, however, further swarming will occur. 



It is frequently noticed that the young queen at first lays 

 quite a number of drone-eggs. Queen-breeders often observe 

 this in their nuclei. This continues for only a few days. This 

 does not seem strange. The act of freeing the sperm-cells 

 from the spermatheca is muscular and voluntary, and that 

 these muscles should not always act promptly at first, is not 

 strange, nor is it unprecedented. Mr. Wagner suggested that 

 the size of the cell determined the sex, as in the small cells the 

 pressure on the abdomen forced the fluid from the sperma- 

 theca. Mr. Quinby also favored this view. I greatly question 

 this theory. All observing apiarists have known eggs to be 

 laid in worker-cells ere they were hardly commenced, when 

 there could be no pressure. In case of queen-cells, too, if the 

 queen does lay the eggs — as I believe — these would be unim- 

 pregnated, as the cell is very large. I know the queen some- 



