A STUDY OF THE FACTORS WHICH GOVERN MATING IN THE 



HONEY BEE. 



BY GEORGE D. SHAPEK. 

 THE PROJECT. 



For the project as entitled above it was proposed to undertalce a 

 study wliich should be directed, in the main, along the following lines 

 of work: 



1. An examination of available literature relating to the problem. 



2. A study of the primary and secondary reproductive organs of the 

 drone and the queen, with respect to relationships of the organs to each 

 other — in the case of the primary organs, including a histological as 

 well as an anatomical study where that seemed advisable.' 



3. An attempt to discover mating habits by observations under field 

 or apiarian conditions or by study after resorting to devices which 

 modify those conditions. 



4. Certain experimental mating tests, designed in such conformity 

 with the instincts and other factors found to govern natural mating, 

 as might possibly lead to some practical method of control — i. e., a 

 method of mating a selected drone with a certain queen. 



These lines of work have not been followed out fully to the author's 

 satisfaction, but it seems best to report, at this time, some results ob- 

 tained during the past season — 1916. 



The facts are now well known that, normally, the virgin queen meets 

 the drone in the air on her "mating flight" and that on returning to 

 her hive from that flight, the successfully mated queen bears a part of 

 the torn drone organ in her vulva. Huber* has been credited with 

 having first related these facts, and his description shows that the dis- 

 covery was original with himself and his assistant. His little book 

 figured, particularly, one part of the drone organ as lost in commerce 

 with the queen (see his fig. 7, Plate II). His figure represents the 

 "bulb" shown herewith in Fig. 4, B. Von Siebold,t also, 1853, learned 

 by direct examination that "those definitely formed parts in the vagina 

 of the queen just mated! were nothing but the torn copulative organs 

 of a male bee (drone)," but neither he nor Huber carried their studies 

 in this connection further, and apparently no one lias recorded any 

 attempt to do so, up to this time. Early in the work on this project, it 

 occurred to the writer that a careful examination of the torn male copu- 



♦Appendix, "New Ohaervations on' the Natural History of Bees," by Francis Hnber, 1821 

 (Translation) — Langstroth in ''Hive and Honey-Eoe." (1802) says In a footnote that Posel 

 and .Tansha were acquainted with certain of these facts as early as 1784. 



t"A True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees," by Carl T. E. Von Siebold, 1857, (Trans, by 

 W. S. Dallas). 



titalics inserted to make the context clear. 



