DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 15 



into the "side pouches." Thus, might the whole process continue until 

 the elastic cup of the bulb itself snapped over in its proper position and 

 directed the mouth of the ejaculatory duct toward the inner cavity of the 

 vagina. It is at that moment, most probably, that the muscular walled 

 seminal vesicles and accessory glands contract and send their contents 

 through the ejaculatory duct in such quantity as to fill the whole inner 

 vagiiKi and distend its walls. Also, it must be then that the winged, 

 concave, elastic bulb-thickening (assisted dorsally by the bilobed append- 

 age") performs its principal function as an effective stopper to hold the 

 sperm-fluid within the vagina. When the drone falls back helpless, and 

 the copulatory tube becomes torn, the thinner portions of the tube walls 

 collaiise; but the thick elastic part of the bulb remains firm — the "slen- 

 der prongs" of the bulb-plates holding securely against the dorsal wall 

 of the vagina — until after the gelatinous-like portion begins to shrivel, 

 when the whole bulb becomes dislodged. 



In looking up references upon the mating of queen honey bees, two 

 quite definite observations were found recorded — both agreeing with the 

 determination given here as to the position necessarily assumed by the 

 queen and drone in sexual union. The essential facts of these two 

 records follow : 



Mr. S. A. Shuck (Am. Bee J., 1882, p. 789) records that he fastened 

 a virgin five days old on a thread ten feet long. He then seciired the 

 thread at the end of an eighteen-foot pole which he raised in his bee 

 yard at about 2:.30 o'clock on an afternoon when numerous drones were 

 flying. The drones chased the queen, at intervals, and finally one of them 

 caught her apparently face to face for a few seconds only; the drone 

 quickly swung back, head downward, snapped and fell to the ground. 

 The queen then bore the "evidence of her mating." 



Mr. E. A. Pratt (Gleanings in Bee Culture, and A B C and X Y Z of 

 Bee Culture by Root) says : "On June 21, 1888, I saw this mating take 

 place. The queen issued from the hive, took two circles and came within 

 five feet of my face, and vras there met by a drone. They seemed to 

 face each other, clinging by their fore legs, their bodies being perpen- 

 dicular, and in this shape flew from my sight. *»***" 



ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL EITHER MATIXG OR ^''FERTILIZATION^ OF THE QUEEN 



HONEY BEE. 



The usual and normal method of mating of the queen honey bee is 

 on the wing and in the open. Many bee-keepers have asserted that it 

 can occur only in that way. The bee journals, however, record many in- 

 stances of successful attempts to control either the mating of queens, or 

 their fertilization, through confinement, or by some hand method. None 

 of these attempts have yet proven practical. Discredit or doubt has 

 been placed upon some of the claims; and rather generally, they have 

 been ignored. Nevertheless, many of the recorded attempts seem to de- 

 serve consideration ; and it may, perhaps, be profitable (without making 

 a complete review) to briefly classify the means used in the case of 



•The fnns of the bilobed appendage appear to have the purpose of pushing out to fill all 

 irregularities around t!'e "prongs" of the bulb-plates between the "little wings" in order to 

 prevent a leal; of the sperm-fluid there when the latter is sent in quantity, with much force, 

 into the anterior vaginal cavity. As has been pointed out, page 10, the bilobed appendage and 

 its little flaps are directed toward the bulb as they evert. 



