12 A MANUAL OF BEE-KEEPING. 



the great anatomist, in conjunction with Sir Everard 

 Home, performed a. series of experiments in attempting 

 to impregnate the eggs of Bees and other insects after 

 they had been deposited by the female ; he succeeded 

 with the Silkworm Moth, but failed with the Bee. 



The facilities we have now for such experiments are 

 many times greater than he had ; and I have thought 

 it possible that if eggs freshly laid in Drone cells be 

 removed to Worker cells, and then touched with a small 

 camel-hair pencil, previously dipped in diluted seminal 

 fluid obtained from the spermatheca of a Queen, the sex 

 of the future young would be changed from male to 

 female; and if so. Queens or Workers could be reared 

 from them. Since I first broached this subject, I have 

 read that Dr. Donhoff, of Germany, in 1855, reared a 

 Worker larva from a Drone egg which he had artifici- 

 ally impregnated, and Langstroth tried the same expe- 

 riment and failed, but he appears to have left the eggs 

 in the Drone cells contrary to the plan of removal I 

 suggest. 



Von Siebold, who made many most skilful microsco- 

 pical examinations of eggs, affirms that among fifty-two 

 eggs taken from Worker cells, examined by him with the 

 greatest care and conscientiousness, thirty-four furnished 

 a positive result ; namely, the existence of seminal fila- 

 ments in which movements could even be detected in three 

 eggs; and among twenty-seven eggs from Drone cells, 

 examined with the same care and by the same method, 

 he did not find one seminal filament in any single egg, 

 either externally or internally. 



The fertility of the Queen Bee is enormous ; in this 

 respect some greatly exceed others; a young Queen 

 will usually lay more eggs in a given time than an old 

 one, which is only according to the natural order of 



