e M
Royal Society
Impregnation of queen. Arthur Dobbs (Vol. 10, Phila. Trans. Abridged) Advances
the idea that the semen of the male may be lodged in the vesicle
figured by Swammerdam and empty into the oviduct which Swammerdam thought
was intended to secrete the viscous fluid for sticking the eggs to the base of the cells. 
Hunter volume 19 advances a similar idea and supports it by reference to his experiments
on silk worms (January 29th 1852) Dr. Leidy dissected today a Queen bee. I took her
from an observing hive which had become very much reduced in numbers. She
accompanied a first swarm of the preceding season, and came from a hive which
had swarmed the year before, she had therefore reign presided in a hive for two
summers. The glass of the hive had been uncovered all the summer, there were no drones in
it early in August, the bees having killed them all off. The ovaries of this Queen were
well filled with eggs but they were not as much developed as those figured by Swammerdam
his were examined when the Queens were laying. This when she was not, the poison bag
with its ducts and the sting were examined, these ducts were larger than those in Swammerdam
the bag did not contain any acrid matter, but it had been immersed 2 hours in the
water before it was tested. The most important point in the dissection was the complete
demonstration of the spermatheen distended with the spermatic fluid. Swammerdam
figures it as a sack for secreting a viscous fluid for attaching the eggs, it is much
more reticulated than in his figure, internal cavity of the spermatheca about 1/33 of an inch,
It was [illegible] to see how large a quantity there was of the spermatic fluid. It would seem to
be impossible that it should all be contained in so small a sac. The spermatozoa were
some [illegible] one unfolded was measured and found to be length 1/350 of an inch,
breadth 1/7000. Not a trace of an [illegible] could be detected in the common worker. 
Dzierzon has advanced the same notion of an impregnated spermatheca and says that
he has often dissected it and found it full of the seminal matter, but he says that the Queen
has no poison bag and suggests that this may be changed into the spermatheca, so great a mistake
tends to bring discredit on his skill in dissecting. Besides although he speaks of the resemblance
of this fluid to the semen of the male, he does not seem to have subjected it to a microscopic
examination, this shows at once the spermatozoa and demonstrates that it is filled with semen. 
February Dr. Leidy has reared two more queens, raised artificially last summer. 
Spermatheca full in [illegible]