380 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



a fertilized egg, and she tried to do so, 

 but because of the thinning out of the 

 sperms in the fluid within the sperm 

 reservoir, the normal draught made upon 

 the spermatheca for fertilizing material 

 with which to bathe the micropyle of a 

 passing egg contained no sperms, or it 

 contained so few that none of them found 

 the open micropyle, and the egg got by 

 without being fertilized. Now, having 

 called upon her determining mechanism 

 for a fertilized egg, she treats the resulting 

 ovum as if it were what she ordered, and 

 places it in a worker-cell. Thus, the 

 presence of drone-brood scattered among 

 worker-brood is not referable to any fault 

 of her will, but to the exhaustion of her 

 stock of sperms. Workerbees appear to 

 be able to discriminate instantly between 

 fertilized eggs and unfertilized ones, but 

 there is no data to warrant one in attribut- 

 ing any such ability to queenbees. 



For obvious reasons copulation in 

 honeybees has very rarely been observed, 

 but from the few reported observations, 

 and more especially from the examination 

 of queens just returning from the wedding 

 flight we establish that the rapidly flying 

 virgin queen is pursued by many com- 

 peting consorts. The strongest drone, 

 outflying most of his rivals, and parrying 

 with the few, maneuvers into a position 

 ventro-ventral with the queen. They 

 grasp each other while still flying, the 

 main axes of their bodies being in a posi- 

 tion parallel to each other and usually 

 perpendicular to the earth. In this condi- 

 tion copulation occurs. After normal 

 copulation the drone is unable to extricate 

 his organ from the vulva of the queen, 

 and it is torn from him altogether. It 

 is borne home by the queen and retained 

 by her till its contents have found their 

 way into the oviduct, after which it is 

 dropped as a dry shred. The spermatozoa 

 now separate themselves from the seminal 



fluid in the oviduct and, stimulated perhaps 

 by chemo taxis, migrate into the sperma- 

 theca. Here they remain alive and active 

 for months or years apparently without 

 the taking of any nourishment, for which 

 they have no known morphological capac- 

 ity, or until they are called to leave 

 again by the same route by which they 

 entered. 



MANY ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL MATING 



The desirability of some means of 

 controlling the mating of the queenbee 

 has been recognized for more than a 

 century and a half, and skilled experi- 

 menters in many lands have not ceased to 

 attack the problem by every conceivable 

 approach. The known attempts to ac- 

 complish this end readily fall under two 

 general heads: (1) the isolation of the 

 virgin queen with one or more selected 

 drones in a limited range, and (2.) forced 

 insemination by violent or by surgical 

 means. The following list of methods 

 which have been tried by outstanding 

 experimenters is by no means complete, 

 but it is representative: 



(1) Painting the vulva of the queen 

 with fresh sperm, 



(2.) Queen tied out on a leash, 



(3) Queen confined with selected drones 

 in a limited range such as wire cages, 

 small glass enclosures, immense green- 

 houses, on islands, and in localities 

 uninhabited by other bees, 



(4) Dropping seminal fluids into the 

 open vulva of the queen, 



(5) Queen and drone held in juxta- 

 position, 



(6) Painting unfertilized eggs with 

 sperm, 



(7) Queen held in a block and injected. 

 So far as we know none of the methods 



catalogued above have proved to be 

 practical for scientific or for commercial 



