114 



Selections. 



[NO. 5, NEW SERIES, 



In the " Bienenzeitung" of Eichstadt, 1845, he thus expresses 

 himself : — " Presupposing what will be referred to and proved in 

 the following numbers, that the queen (female bee), to become 

 good for anything, must be fertilized by a drone (male bee), and 

 that the copulation takes place in the air. — I express the convic- 

 tion, from which all phenomena and mysteries may be perfectly 

 explained, that the drone eggs do not require fecundation ; but 

 that the co-operation of the drones is absolutely necessary when 

 worker bees are to be produced." Again — " In copulation the 

 ovaries are not fecundated, but the seminal receptacle, that little 

 vesicle or knot, which in the young queen is filled with a watery 

 moisture, is saturated with semen, after which it is more clearly 

 distinguishable by its white colour ; the activity of the ovaries in 

 the normal state commences only after copulation, but it is not 

 necessarily caused thereby ; hence many unfecundated queens lay 

 no eggs at all, while others lay only drone eggs ; and even workers 

 do the latter, although, from their want of a seminal receptacle, I 

 regard them as quite incapable of copulation. I am convinced 

 that such eggs are sufficient for the production of drones, whilst 

 the egg from which a queen or worker is to be developed must 

 come in contact with the seminal receptacle." In another place 

 he thus writes : — " The queen has it in her power to deposit an 

 egg just as it comes from the ovary, and as the unfecundated mo- 

 thers lay it ; or, by the action of her seminal receptacle, to invest 

 it with a higher degree, a higher potency of fertility, and awaken 

 in it a more perfect being, namely, a queen or worker." 



Baron v. Berlepsch, of Seebach, has also contributed much to 

 establish this theory of Dzierzon and by liberally placing his 

 hives, furnished with Dzierzon's moveable comb-supports, at the 

 service of Siebold, enabled the latter fully to confirm Dzierzon's 

 views. Baron v. Berlepsch also performed three experimenta 

 crucis : in the first he contrived the exclusion of a queen at the 

 end of September, when there were no longer any males, and this 

 queen, early in the ensuing year, furnished 1500 cells with a drone 

 brood, the subsequent accurate dissections of Leuckart proving 

 that this queen was a virgin. The second experiment exhibited 

 considerable ingenuity. Knowing that a high or a low tempera- 



