64 AUSTRALASIAN 



copulation is accomplished outside the hive and while on the 

 wing high in the air. 4. That one impregnation was sufficient 

 to fertilise all the eggs laid by the queens subsequently for two 

 years at least, perhaps for life. 5. But that if the act of 

 impregnation was delayed beyond the twenty-first day of the 

 queen's life, her eggs would afterwards produce only drones. 

 Huber also proved that queens could be reared from the larvae 

 of worker eggs, and also that in some rare cases workers were 

 able to lay eggs, which, however, could only produce drones. 

 He investigated other matters of the greatest importance to 

 the science of bee-culture, and has been gratefully designated 

 The Prince of Apiculturists by Langstroth. He failed, 

 however, to discover the secrets of the spermatheca, and re- 

 mained under the false impression that the fertilisation of the 

 eggs took place in the ovaries and that there were two sorts of 

 eggs, one sort to produce workers and. queens, the other to 

 produce drones, and that they occupied separate portions of 

 the ovaries. His cotemporary, Schirach, who also contributed 

 much to apiarian science, supposed that one branch of the 

 ovaries contained the one sort and the second branch the other 

 sort of fertilised eggs. In this state the science remained for 

 some sixty years. Langstroth says it is now ascertained that 

 Posel, in a work published at Munich in 1784 — therefore 

 previous to the experiments of Huber — " describes the sperma- 

 theca and its contents and the use of the latter in impregnating 

 the passing egg;" and also that "years ago the celebrated 

 Dr. John Hunter and others supposed that there must be a 

 permanent receptacle for the male sperm opening into the 

 oviduct." Nothing certain was known, however, until 1845, 

 when the brilliant discoveries of Dzierzon led to the promul- 

 gation of the theory which bears his name, and especially to 

 the doctrine of 



PARTHENOGENESIS. 



On this point Professor Cook says : — 



" This strange anomaly — development of the eggs without impreg- 

 nation — was discovered and proved by Dzierzon in 1845. Dr. Dzierzon, 

 who as a student of practical and scientific apiculture must rank with 

 the great Huber,, 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." 



