28 THE REARING OF QUEEN BEES. 
opening into the oviduct down which the eggs must pass in going from 
the ovaries to the outside of the body. As each egg is laid, if it is to 
be fertilized, it receives one spermatozoon from this spermatheca, and 
the male cell is received into the egg and unites Avith it. More than 
one spermatozoon may adhere to the outside of the egg, but no normal 
egg will admit more than one through the micropyle or opening in the 
end of the egg covering. v 
In mating, the queen receives an enormous number of these sperma- 
tozoa, the number having been estimated at from two to twenty 
million. Since mating usually occurs but once, it is evident that these 
spermatozoa must be capable of independent existence for live years 
or more, for they are not capable of dividing or increasing in number 
in any way, and the queen is of course unable to produce new ones. 
Frequent cases have been reported of queens which have mated more 
than once, and this probably accounts for irregularity in the markings 
of the offspring of some queens. It is claimed by some that obviously 
the first mating must have been unsuccessful, but there seems to be 
no ground for that view, and there is no reason to believe that both 
matings were not complete. There is no reason whatever, so far as 
is known, why a queen can not receive a supply of spermatozoa from 
two drones, and some of the arguments to the contrary, with no basis 
of observation or knowledge of the anatomy, are not worthy of con- 
sideration. Cases have even been reported in which queens which 
have actually begun to lay have gone out for a second mating; but the 
evidence is as yet meager, and it will be well to wait for further obser- 
vation before considering such a possibility. Usually, however, a 
queen takes but one mating flight, and thereafter never again leaves 
the hive except with a swarm. The ovaries develop to such an extent 
that flight is impossible, without a previous stoppage in egg laying. 
TESTING aUEENS. 
If the honey producer is rearing queens for his own use, they may 
be introduced into full colonies as soon as they begin to lay. A fair 
idea of the value of the queen may be formed from the number and 
regularity of the eggs laid in the nucleus box, and if later she is found 
to be mismated, or not up to the standard in egg laying in a full col- 
ony, she should be discarded. A queen may be tested as to the purity 
of mating by allowing her brood to emerge in a small nucleus, but no 
estimate can be made in this way concerning her proliticness. In test- 
ing for pure mating, however, the entrance should be covered with 
perforated zinc to prevent the colony from swarming out. If a queen 
is to be sold as "untested," she may be shipped as soon as she begins 
to la} 7 after mating. Tested queens are those which have been kept 
until their progeny show the markings of pure mating. 
