126 
THE HIVE ANT) HONET-BEE. 
have intercourse with the drone. Huber first discovered 
that she returned with the male organ torn from the 
drone, and still adhering to her body. If it were not for 
this arrangement, her spermatheca could not be filled, 
unless she remained so long in the air with the drone as 
to incur a very great risk of being devoured by birds. 
In one instance, some days after the impregnation of a 
queen, I found the male organ,* in a dried state, adhering 
• On page 60 of the English translation of Prof. Siobold's work on “ Partheno¬ 
genesis ” (that is, production without intercourse with the male) ^of Moths and 
Eces," may be found the following extract of a letter to Prof. Siebold, dated 2l8t 
July, 1853, from the celebrated German Apiarian, the Baron Von Bcrlepsch. 
“ I succeeded, to-day, in Impaling upon a pin, a queen which had flown out to 
copulate, just as she was about to re-enter the hive. The signs of copulation stand 
far out. ♦ * • 'Will you have the kindness to settle, by dissection: 1, if any, and 
what, parts of the drone occur in the royal vulva; and 2, what is the condition of 
the seminal receptacle. If there be parts of the drone in the vulva, people will, 
at last, admit that the drones arc tbo males, and that the copulation takes place 
outside of the hive. * ♦ ♦ Moreover, If you find the seminal receptacle filled with 
somcn, Dzlorzon’s hypothesis — according to which the ovary Is not fertilized, but 
the seminal receptacle filled with male dronc-soiuon, by copulation—is raised Into 
evidence.” 
Prof. Siebold says, that ‘‘ho was able to establish, that those doflnitcdy formed 
parts in the vagina of the queen were nothing but the torn copulativo organs of a 
male bee (drone). With this condition of the external sexual organs of the queen, 
the state of the internal generativo organs also agreed exactly, for the seminal re¬ 
ceptacle which is empty in all virgin female insects, was, in this queen, filled to 
overflowing with seminal filaments (spormatozoids).” 
I give as interesting, In this connection, the following extract from my journal: 
** Auguat 25^A, 1852.—Found the male organ protruding from a young queen; 
could not remove it without exerting so much force that I feared it would kill her. 
Pr. Joseph Leidy examined this queen-bee with the microscope, so as to demon 
atrato that—to use his words—‘it was the penis and its appendages of a male, 
corresponding, in ail its anatomicai peculiarities, with tlie sumo organs examined, 
at the same time, in other drones. The testicles and vasa d^erentia of these 
drones wore found to be full of the spermatic fluid. The /ipennat/ieca of the 
queen was distended with the same semi-fluid, spermatic matter.' Tliis one exam¬ 
ination de7non*>trutes that the drones are males, and that they imiu-cgnate the 
queen by acttial coition.” 
Prof. Siebold further says: “ As In the act of copulation of the bees, the penis 
bf a drone is completely protruded outwards, and Jis no particular muscular appa¬ 
ratus exists for the extrusion of the penis, the circumstanco that the <lrone.s eopu* 
late in llight, has an Important signification. * * * During the movement of the 
wings, tl)e dlfiorent air-sacs of the tracheal system of the drone arc filled with air, 
