68o General Notes. [August, 



in the slightly larger size and paler posterior tibiae; also in the 

 angulated outer side of first cubical cell and the lack of puncta- 

 tions beyond second abdominal joint. 



Micro'aster lunatus Pack. (p. 28). This bred from Papilio 

 asterias, is an Apanteles.— C. V. Riley. 



Does Parthenogenesis exist in the Bee? — According to the 

 experiments of the Abbe Giotto Ulivi, as reported by Prof. G. F. 

 Kroeh, in the St ie nii fie American, March 25, 1882, parthenogenesis 

 is a myth. Ulivi constructed fiat hives with glass sides, contain- 

 ing three combs above each other, and furnished with shutters 

 and with a portico having glass sides and a trap to prevent egress 

 at will. One series of these hives was filled with bees,' stores of 

 honey and pollen, worker and drone brood, and queen cells, 

 sealed and unsealed ; a second series had no queen cells, a third 

 no queen cells, drones, or drone brood. The result of careful ob- 

 servations, as stated by Ulivi, are that : 



1. Queens are usually fertilized inside the hive. Queens on 

 their return from the so-called " marriage flight " had empty sper- 

 mathecas, while the act of fertilization was repeatedly witnessed 

 in the hive. 



2. They are fertilized several times. 



3. Drones are not mutilated in the act of copulation. No 

 lacerated drones were found after several careful examinations of 

 all the drones in hives in which impregnation had taken place, 

 and the whitish appendage attached to the queen's abdomen on 

 her return from the " marriage- flight " was found to consist of 



4. Every egg that hatches into a male or female has been pre- 

 viously fecundated. Queens that had been allowed to fly were 

 afterwards confined in hives containing no drones or drone brood, 

 and either laid no eggs, or laid eggs that did not hatch. 



5. Every queen whose spermatic vesicle is distended and filled 

 with liquid has been fertilized. 



6. The eggs of a queen that has never met a drone will not 

 hatch. 



7. There is no such thing as a fertile worker. Fertile eggs 

 will keep through the winter and hatch in the spring, and this 

 hatching of fertilized eggs in queenless colonies has led to the be- 

 lief in fertile workers. 



The investigations appear to have been carefully and thoroughly 

 conducted, and every result is based upon repeated observations. 

 Should they be confirmed, not only will the theory and practice 

 of bee-keeping be revolutionized, but another example will be 

 added to the many that go to prove how slow mankind should be 

 to accept as true conclusions opposed to the ordinary laws of me- 

 lt may be as well to mention that the continued reproduction 

 of the aphides, sometimes called parthenogenesis or virgin ma- 

 ternity, is really of a very different nature. It is a process oi 



