378 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



but these exceptions are so few as almost 

 to prove the rule. 



The reproductive organs of the queen- 

 bee consist of two gigantic ovaries whose 

 ducts, leading backwards, coalesce into 

 a single canal, the oviduct, which hastens 

 to its exit in the genito-anal vestibule 

 (fig. i). At a slight distance from the 

 vestibule, and on the dorsal side of the 

 oviduct, is a tiny spherical pouch opening 

 into the latter. This is the spermatheca, 

 the exact function of which sorely vexed 

 the early students of insect physiology. 



The gropings of the early investigators 

 after the true explanation of how bees' 

 eggs are fertilized, and how a queen can 

 lay two kinds of eggs apparently at will, 



Fig. i. Free-hand Sketch of Queen's Abdomen 

 Conventionalized side view showing relative 

 position of the reproductive organs only; o, left 

 ovary; od, oviduct; spmt, spermatheca; v, vulva; r, 

 rectum; s, sting; vi>, vestibule. 



constitute a long but engaging story. 

 After years of health-breaking study, 

 during the course of which he recorded 

 many, but obviously not all, of the critical 

 habits of the hive, Swammerdam con- 

 cluded (1673) that queenbees were not 

 fecundated by actual physical contact with 

 the drones because, he said, the generative 

 organs of the drones were quite too large. 

 Led by the observation that when drones 

 are shut up in a small space, as a bottle, 

 they exhale a characteristic body odor, 

 which he conceived to be an emanation of 

 the ' 'aura seminalis, ' ' or the aura seminalis 

 itself, he concluded that in the hive this 

 aura penetrated the body of the queen and 

 effected fertilization. He believed that 

 the spermatheca contained a mucilaginous 



secretion for sticking the eggs to the 

 bottom of the cells. 



Swedenborg believed (1750) that all 

 the eggs of bees were unfertilized when 

 laid, but that later the eggs in the cells 

 were visited by the drones and fertilized 

 individually by a contact process. Reau- 

 mur, the inventor of the thermometer 

 which bears his name, announced (1740) 

 that the true function of the spermatheca 

 is to receive and hold the fertilizing 

 material from the drone, and to deal it 

 out, a few sperms at a time, to the eggs as 

 they pass down the oviduct. 



It remained for Dr. John Dzierzon (1845) 

 to make his illuminating contribution, 

 the theory of parthenogenesis, and to 

 apply it to honeybees. This theory has 

 never had to be changed. Substantiated 

 by every conceivable proof, and amplified 

 by more recent findings, the case of 

 honeybees may now be stated as follows: 

 all the eggs of the queenbee are unfer- 

 tilized as they leave the ovaries, and they 

 are potentially only male producing. 

 The chorion of these unlaid eggs contains 

 near the large end a tiny hole, the micro- 

 pyle, through which a sperm may enter as 

 the egg descends the oviduct and passes 

 the spermathecal duct. The fusion of 

 the sperm cell with the nucleus of an 

 egg constitutes the fertilization of the 

 egg, and when it hatches a female bee 

 results. Drones have never been known 

 to develop from fertilized eggs. But dis- 

 charging eggs do not always receive a 

 sperm as they pass the spermatheca, 

 and such eggs are never fertilized. When 

 hatched they can produce only drones. 



The queen is the only perfect female in 

 the hive, and her sole function is to 

 recruit the family. The workers are also 

 females, and are reared from the same kind 

 of eggs, viz., fertilized eggs, but owing at 

 least in part to the kind of food given 

 them during the larval stage their genera- 



