126 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-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 BO of the English translation of Prof. Siebold's work on “ Partheno¬ 
genesis” (that is, production without intercourse with the male) “of Moths and 
Bees,” may be found the following extract of a letter to Prof. Siebold, dated ‘21st 
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 roceptaclo. If there be parts of the drone in the vulva, people will, 
at last, admit that the drones are the males, and that the copulation takes place 
outside of the hive. * ♦ * Moreover, if you find the seminal roceptaclo filled with 
ecmcn, Dzierzon's hypothesis—according to which the ovary is not fertilized, but 
the seminal receptacle filled with male drone-semen, by copulation—is raised into 
evidence.” 
Prof. Siebold says, that “ho was able to establish, that those definitely formed 
parts in the vagina of the queen were nothing but the torn copulative organs of a 
male bee (drone). With this condition of the external sexual organs of the queen, 
the state of the internal generative organs also agreed exactly, for the seminal re¬ 
ceptacle which is empty in till virgin female insects, was, in this queen, filled to 
overflowing with seminal filaments (spermatozoids).” 
I give as interesting, in this connection, the following extract from my journal: 
« August 25 tb, 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. 
Dr. Joseph Leldy examined this queen-bee with the microscope, so as to demon 
strate that—to use his words— ‘ it was the penis and its appendages of a male, 
corresponding, in all its anatomical peculiarities, with the same organs examined, 
at the same time, in other drones. The testicles and vatsa deferentia of these 
drones were found to be full of the spermatic fluid. The spermatheca of the 
queen was distended with the same semi-fluid, spermatic matter.’ This one exam¬ 
ination demonstrates that the drones are males, and that they impregnate the 
queen by actual coition.” 
Prof. Siebold further says : “ As in the act of copulation of the bees, the penis 
*>f a drone is completely protruded outwards, and as no particular muscular appa¬ 
ratus exists for the extrusion of the penis, the circumstance that the drones copu¬ 
late in flight, has an important signification. * * * During the movement of the 
wings, the different air-sacs of the tracheal system of the drone are filled with air. 
