The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-06-13

stances the number of droneS Is increase
ed, and may rise to 1,500, or even be-
come so numerous as to destroy the
harmony of the hive, and bring about
the destruction of the whole communi-
ty The number of working bees are
larger still. For a light hive there
may be as many as $4,000; In heavy
hive there may be 10000 working bees,
and even more. These three kinds of
individuals constitute one community,
in perfect normal condition. Sometimes
such communities divide, part of them
Withdrawing to form another colony
but it is in the nature of bees always to
associate in these relative numbers one
queen, many hundred drones, and many
thousand working bees, constituting
community. The drones do not long
survive. Their Life is limited to a sum-
mer, while the queen bee may live
three, four and, though rarely, even five,
six, or seven years, and the working
bees about the same time. The nature
Ct these different individuals and their
relation to each other is a question
which has puzzled observers from the
Oldest times. The Greeks in their best
days cultivated bees, and their poets
and their scientific men speak of them
repeatedly. In the history of every
civilized community in Europe, we find
the bee mentioned. Their habits have
been watched with care, and their
economy has been studied in order to
add, if possible, to their productive
ness. The question has risen: What is
that one, single, commanding, individu-
al who reigns with undivided power
over thousands of other individuals?
The Germans gave it a masculine name,
Der TVeiSel, taking it for the king.
The English and French called it
queen. What the others might be was
also matter of speculation. The Ger
mans called the drones by feminine
name, Die DrOh1ae, and the working
bees have been looked upon Us kind
of slave to the others.
THE FACTS IN RESPECT TO BEES.
It is only within few years that the
mystery of this singular domestic econo-
my has been really solved. A clergyman
in Slesia, Dzierzon, who was engaged in
raising bees, first announced to the world
and maintained that these bees hold rela-
tons to each other of so peculiar
character that when first stated by him
they appeared utterly Incredible TO the
scientific men of our day. Dzierzon as
certained that the queen had the power
of laying eggs which never produced
anything but males, and that in order
to produce males these eggs must be laid
without formulation that the working
bees were females born from eggs which
had been formulated, but that these fe-
males did not undergo a complete de-
velopment, remained in a kind of imper-
feet condition, and could only be raised
to aperfect state under exceptional treat
ment by peculiar mode of feeding to
which one of them was submitted by the
working bees when the queen had been
lost or persisted, and another must be
supplied. He maintained further that
the queen was the product of fecunda-
ted egg, laid in special cell, under
going directly project development,
and reaching sexual maturity the queen
alone of all the females being capable
of population. These statements we're
received with doubt and almost with
derision by investigators, until another
gentleman engaged in raising bees,
Baron Won Werlepsch, repeated the In
vestigations of Dzierzon, and satisfied
himself and others that the new theory
was entirely in accordance with his
knowledge of the economy of the bee.
But neither of these observers had suf-
fcient anatomical knowledge nor the
scientific training needed to treat the
subject from the view of the natural
history. Two natJralists undertook to
test the matter. Siebold, one of the
ablest investigators of the time, and
Lenckart, equally competent in such
researches, ascertained by careful inves-
tigation that the whole theory of Dezir-
zon was in accordance with facts. What
is the detail [ will show in my next
lecture. The bee, however, and most
of those insects known as Hymenoptera
are capable of producing fertile off
spring without foundation. But their
Ifnfecundated eggs produce invariably
males, and males only. This process
has been called Arrhenotoky. Siebold,
extending his researches to the phyllo-
pods, q family of ciustacea, has ascer-
tanned that the unfecundated females of
these crustacea, on the contrary, pro-
duce, in S. lccessive generations, females,
and females only. To this process he
has given the name of Thelytoky. Since
we now know how under certain con-
ditions male offspring, and under others
female offspring may be obtained, I
have no doubt that in course of time
the reproducing of our domesticated
animals may be so influenced as to pro-
duce at will one or the other sex.