CONTROLLED MATING IN HONEYBEES 



385 



The queen may now be released from the 

 operating-table, both wings on one side 

 clipped off to prevent any subsequent flight 

 in pursuit of further nuptials, and then 

 returned to her own bees. If she received 

 no injuries during the operation she will 

 be accepted by her own bees with the same 

 etiquette as if she were only returning 

 from a natural wedding flight. If all is 

 well she will begin oviposition in a day 

 or two, and follow in every respect there- 

 after the role of a normally mated queen. 



Instrumental insemination of queenbees 

 is in its infancy. Its first birthday has 

 just passed. Successful queens began to 

 appear in the autumn of 19x6. Because 

 of the lateness of the season it was not 

 possible to culture many of the treated 

 queens through a complete life cycle before 

 winter. Data as to the success or failure 

 of the operation, therefore, were gathered 

 from about 40 of the treated queens by 

 determining the presence or absence of 

 spermatozoa in the spermatheca under 

 dissection. Somewhat more than 50 per 

 cent of the queens examined were found 

 to have received insemination ranging all 

 the way from very slight up to normal. 



MATURE DRONES NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS 



Let it be recalled that the spermatheca 

 of a virgin queen contains only a thin, 

 clear liquid, but that after successful 

 insemination, either natural or instru- 

 mental, this liquid appears thick and 

 opaque because of the million or more of 

 spermatozoa suspended in it. The mating 

 of a normal queen with a vigorous drone 

 results in the dense crowding of the sperm 

 reservoir with motile sperms, but if the 

 mating occurs with a less vigorous male 

 the number of sperms received may be 

 very much less, and her period of useful- 

 ness as a layer would obviously be pro- 

 portionately shorter. To enable her to 



head a populous colony successfully for the 

 usual span of two or three years, it is 

 necessary that the queen should have the 

 most copious insemination possible in the 

 beginning, because (1) queens do not take 

 mating flights on successive years to 

 replenish their stock of sperms, and (z) 

 there is no multiplication of sperms within 

 the spermatheca. 



Whether a queen that has received 

 scant insemination, either on the wing or 

 under the microscope, will attempt to 

 make subsequent flights in pursuit of 

 further nuptials seems not to be governed 

 by any regularity which we now under- 

 stand. Some queens that have received 

 insemination equal only to about 5 per 

 cent of the normal degree never show any 

 desire to mate again, but turn themselves 

 at once to a rapid but brief period of egg 

 laying; other queens that have received 

 as much as 50 per cent of the normal 

 amount of insemination never lose the 

 passion to get out on the wing and mate 

 again. 



BETTER EQUIPMENT NEEDED 



The second season of instrumental 

 insemination has seen no great changes in 

 the equipment used nor in the method of 

 using it. Some improvement in technique 

 is suggested by the fact that the proportion 

 of queens receiving some degree of insemi- 

 nation has risen from 50 per cent in 1916 

 to 65 per cent in 19x7. The need has 

 been felt for a more convenient and more 

 adaptable form of operating-table, and 

 designs are incubating for a perfectly 

 stabilized retracting device to hold open 

 the genito-anal vestibule of the queen 

 while the syringe is being emplaced. 

 Especially is it to be desired to have this 

 function performed under better control 

 than is possible by the pulsating left hand 

 of the operator. 



