The Dzierzon Theory by The Baron of Berlepsch, Part III

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section one of the American b Journal, Volume one, number three,
March eighteen sixty one, by Various. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The

(00:23):
American b Journal, Volume one, number three, March eighteen sixty one,
by various, Section one. The Jerjon theory by the Baron
of Berlepsch number three. Having fully considered the only objection

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urged against the first proposition, and as I conceive finally
disposed of the black bees, I shall now discuss the second,
arranging it for greater convenience under several distinct heads. The
second proposition reads thus, in the normal condition of a colony,
the queen is the only perfect female present in the

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hive and lays all the eggs found therein. These eggs
are male and female. From the former precede the drones,
from the latter, if laid in narrow cells, precede the
workers or undeveloped females, and from them also if laid
in wider acorn shaped and vertically suspended so called royal cells,

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lavishly supplied with a peculiar pabulum or jelly precede the
queens one. In the normal condition of a colony, the
queen is the only perfect female present. This will commonly
be conceded even by those apiarians who believe that, in
the normal condition of a colony, the drone eggs are

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laid by a distinct class of bees, which they call
drone mothers. They cannot, however, do so consistently. For if
the queen can lay worker eggs only, and the conjectural
drone mothers lay drone eggs only, it is not very
clear how the queen can be regarded as in any
respect a more perfectly developed female than those hypothetical drone mothers.

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But we need not now discuss this point, because it
will incidentally be disposed of when we prove, as we
presently shall, that the queen lays the drone eggs also.
Nor need we do more than advert to the novel
notion recently broached by a correspondent of the Beninze Tomb,
who reconverts the queen into a male, the only one

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in the colony, and places this male, like the padisha
at Stamboul, on a throne in a seralio. Though we
have hundreds of times seen the queen lay eggs, frequently
in our own hands. We have never yet seen a
rooster lay any except boiled ones at Easter, when the
children pommeled his tail to test his fertility. Two, in

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the normal condition of a colony, the queen lays all
the eggs found therein. Since no one nowadays denies that
the queen regularly and exclusively lays all the eggs from
which the workers and queens are produced, the only question
remaining is whether in the normal condition of a colony,
the queen lays the drone eggs. Also, though Jerjon alleges

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that he has seen her do so more than fifty times,
still the fact is not conceded by all, and many
of the ablest apiarians continue to controvert the doctrine. We
long labored under delusion ourselves in this particular, but publicly
recanted the error in the Benanzie Tomb number eighth, eighteen

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fifty two, when communicating the results of experiments expressly made
to ascertain the truth, and which demonstrated the correctness of
Jerjon's position. We will here briefly recapitulate the statements then
made quote experiment first, on the twelfth of June, I

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caught the queen of a colony which contained both worker
and drone brood, and confined her in a cage, which
I suspended in the hive among the bees. On the
eighth of July, I took out all the combs, brushed
off the bees, and examined every cell minutely with the lens,
satisfying myself that there was not a single egg to

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be found. I then re inserted the combs and released
the queen. On the twentieth of July, I saw worker
brood and on the twenty third drone brood in the
cells experiment. Second, simultaneously, on the twelfth of June, I

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removed the queen of a second colony. On the twenty first,
I took out all the combs and destroyed the royal
cells which had been built on the eighth of July.
Neither worker nor drone brood was to be found in
any of the cells. On the thirty first the combs
contained a large amount of drone brood, namely one hundred

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and seventy five larvae and worker cells, some of which
were capped, and fifty four in drone cells. The un
hatched eggs I did not count. Experiment Third, I now
divided the bees of this second colony into three nearly
equal portions, transferred each into an observing hive furnished with

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a single empty comb, and carried them to a mill
two miles distant from my apiary. This was done on
the thirty first of July at three p m. I
and my servant Gunther, an enthusiastic apiaryan and fearless operator
now undertook to watch them alternately. At five o'clock, the

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bees had deserted two of the hires and joined their
late companions in the third, covering the comb so densely
that no observations could be made. Next morning, we removed
the outlying bees and caught and confined all that issued
till the population was so reduced that the cells of
the combs could conveniently be inspected. Nine eggs could now

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be seen in five cells. We continued to watch by
turns all day, without detecting any bee in the act
of laying. At nightfall, we placed the hive on a
table in an arbor and continued our observations by lamplight.
A few minutes before one o'clock, Gunther exclaimed, now there

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is one laying. I instantly lifted out the comb, and
Gunther transfixed the bee with a needle. As she was
withdrawing her abdomen from the cell, in which I inserted
a pin in order to mark the spot. Gunther now
drew out the transfixed bee, and on examining the cell,

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each of us saw the egg it contained. We then
replaced the comb and closed the hive. About an hour later,
while we were engaged in conversation, a bee suddenly flew
into the flame of the lamp, and I directed Gunthera
to carry the hive out of the arbor. On approaching it,

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he remarked that the bees were coursing over its exterior
and great commotion, evidently in search of a queen. They
continued to do so all night, showing that these bees,
which had actually been queenless since the twelfth of June,
were now first really conscious of their destitution, for they
deported themselves precisely like bees which have just discovered that

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they have lost their queen, uttering faintly the usual plaintive moan.
At nine o'clock next morning, we transferred the bees to
another observing high I have furnished with a comb certainly
containing no eggs. My object was to ascertain whether egg
lay would still be continued. At six o'clock in the evening,

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I found the hive deserted by all the bees except three,
and not an egg had been laid. The egg laying bee,
thus caught flagrante delicto, was precisely similar in size, color,
and appearance to a common worker. No difference whatever was perceptible.

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The results of these experiments remarkable, as they are speak
decidedly in favor of Jerjon's theory, and as decidedly against
the views hitherto entertained and defended by mister Brown and myself.
End we will merely add now to what was then

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stated that last summer we saw the queen of an
undoubtedly normal colony lay eggs in drone cells. As we
shall relate more in detail when we come to consider
the third proposition, we must regard all further discussion of
this point as superfluous till the opponents of the doctrine
produce new evidence in support of their views, or new

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arguments to sustain them. Mister Cadden indeed does advance something new,
inasmuch as when questioning the conclusiveness of these experiments. He
contends that the confinement of a fertile queen and the
consequent cessation of egg laying are not demonstrative evidence that
the drone eggs were laid by the queen, because the

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confinement of the queen produces a disturbance in the order
and economy of the colony, without yet placing it in
the condition of actual queenlessness. This disturbance we may surely
be permitted to carry out Mister Cadden's argument causes the
drone mothers to cease laying. Now, if this is not

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an argumentum desperatum, there never can be any By the
removal of a queen a colony is at once placed
in a condition of queenlessness. And why the drone mothers,
who are supposed to labor so beautifully in their vocation
while the queen is present, should suddenly cease laying when
she is merely put in dure us in the hive.

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We are unable to comprehend. What are those drone mothers,
thus suddenly disturbed to do with the eggs which have
matured and are now ready to be deposited. Shall they
let them drop? Aye? But to ascertain whether they do
drop them. Mister Caddin should drum out a colony while

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drone eggs are laid, remove the queen, place the bees
in an empty hive, and set this on a blackboard.
Eggs ought to patter down like hail. Or he might
transfer the bees to a high I have furnished with
empty drone combs, in the hope of finding the cells
two or three days later, thoroughly supplied with eggs, whereas,

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joking apart, he would not find a single egg. In
either case, Let mister Caterer clip the wings of an
unfecundiated queen, and four weeks after examine the hive for
drone brood. Possibly he may find none, But if perchance

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some be discovered in a few cells, let him then
transfer the entire community, queen and workers into an observing
hive and watch them carefully. We can assure him that
he will then soon see the queen lay. He may
thus not only satisfy himself of the untenableness of his
doctrine that drone mothers are regular members of every colony,

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but at the same time become convinced that there are
queens which, though unfecundated, are able to lay from which
living drones can be developed. Though many apiarians deny generally
that in the normal condition of a colony the queen
ever lays drone eggs, yet some among them admit that

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exceptional cases occur when, as in drone breeding colonies, the
queen lays the eggs from which the drones proceed. Others, however,
go so far as to assert that at no time,
and under no circumstances can a queen lay drone eggs.
It must be acknowledged that the latter reason more consistently

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than the former, though they are in fact involved in
an equally gross error. Instead of relying on sheer a
priori reasoning, these should take some drone breeding colony in
which the eggs are laid with regularity cell after cell,
and in worker cells especially, drum out the bees and
transfer them to an observing high have furnished with empty combs.

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They will then speedily see what we and others have
often seen, a queen laying drone eggs, or eggs from
which drones will in due time be hatched. Such experiments, however,
demand patient observation and a degree of tact and skill,
which all do not possess, and which it would seem,

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are more difficult to acquire than the art of composing
fanciful treatises on bee culture. Three. The eggs in a
normal colony are male and female. From the former precede
the drones from the latter, if laiden narrow cells precede
the workers or undeveloped females. Against this portion of the proposition,

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three objections are urged. A. It is denied by some
that the eggs from which the drones are developed are male,
inasmuch as they contend that the drones themselves are not males.
This objection will be thoroughly refuted when we come to
speak of the fecundation of the queen b Those who

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advocate the doctrine that special drone mothers exist in every
colony are constrained to contend that imperfectly developed females do
not proceed from all the eggs laden worker cells, but
that some of those eggs produce females perfectly developed alias
drone mothers. We may for the present pass over this objection,

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also because the doctrine of the regular occurrence of drone
laying workers in every colony has already been in part
refuted and will be thoroughly discussed and exploded in a
subsequent article. See Doctor Magerstett contends that the workers are
not undeveloped females, but that the major portion of them

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are males and the rest drone mothers or consequently fully
developed females. We may here pass this objection likewise, because
we shall have occasion to show in our fourth article
that in the absence of drones no queen ever becomes
perfectly fertile, that is, capable of laying worker eggs. This

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would unquestionably not be the case if the males were
to be found among the workers. End of Section one