BEE MANUAL. 267 



to the other germs found, my knowledge is at present so slender, that 

 I must advance nothing beyond the discovery of an enormously large 

 bacillus which takes what is called the zooglea form — two, or possibly 

 three, very minute kinds of bacilli and a micrococcus. The micrococ- 

 cus will most probably turn out to be a putrefactive kind accidentally 

 present." 



ARRENOTOKIA. 



This name is given to a certain defective condition of queens- 

 Mr. Cheshire, in carrying out his investigations, required a 

 number of queens, which have been furnished him by different 

 bee-keepers. Amongst them he discovered two drone-breeders, 

 each with its spermatheca " furnished completely with sperma- 

 tozoa." In explanation he says : 



"The name ' arrenotokia, ' applied by Leuckart in 1857 to a case 

 similar to the one we are considering, indicates that the queen, as dis- 

 tinguished from a normal drone breeder, is fully furnished with sper- 

 matozoa, and is yet incapable of fertilising her eggs. ' The possible 

 causes are various, since the mechanism, so wondrously delicate and 

 complex, which pays out the spermatozoa as they may be required, 

 and which I explained a few months since, may fail in its muscles or 

 nerves, or even the spermatozoa themselves may be defective, as 

 actually appears to be the case in this instance. " 



In speculating upon the probable cause of defective sper- 

 matozoa, he asks : 



' ' Can the lateness of the season at which this queen was hatched in 

 any way explain the matter ? Drones, at the date given (October), are 

 normally gone ; but the progeny of fertile workers are then discover- 

 able in the prime of youth, as well as old drones permitted to live in 

 queenless stocks. Speculation is easy, and the possibility suggests 

 itself, that the defective spermatozoa owe their faults to the fact that 

 old or abnormal drones yielded them." The first case he examined he 

 thinks " was probably due to paralysis of some of the muscles attached 

 to the spermathecal valve ;" and further says : " This production of 

 drones only has been artificially produced by pinching the extremity 

 of the abdomen, so that the last ganglion is injured." 



I have myself known young queens — to all appearance per- 

 fectly healthy — after laying worker eggs for a time, suddenly 

 turn to drone-breeders in some unaccountable manner. It cer- 

 tainly would be interesting to know the cause of such a change ; 

 — injury to the abdomen would be almost certain to cause it. 



