No. 63.J 227 



keep bees, and have kept them a great many years under what may 

 be called the "/?^67c" system, and express it as their belief that no 

 such personage as a queen exists among bees, and treat the whole 

 subject as a hoax. But it is believed that the most skeptical would 

 be convinced of his error, if he would visit me and my apiary, any 

 time between the first and fifteenth of July in any year. 



In treating upon this subject, I shall be as brief as I can be, and 

 make myself understood by the readers of your reports, a majori- 

 ty of whom will require less illustrations in order to understand me, 

 than the community generally who are not as well informed on this 

 subject. 



The female or queen is very unlike any other bee in the hive; she is 

 usually about one and a quarter inches in length; her abdomen is very 

 long, perfectly round, and is formed somewhat like the sugar loaf, or 

 cone. Her wings are short in proportion to the length of her body; has 

 the same number of folds or rings in her abdomen, that is found in the 

 working bee; her proboscis is small and very short; her color is 

 usually of a yellow shade, and is stately and majestic in her appearance; 

 admirably fiited in the form of her body to perform the duties of her 

 office, which nature has assigned her, which is principally if not en- 

 tirely, that of laying eggs to increase the population of the hive. 

 This she does by entering the cell backwards, which is clear from 

 honey or bread, and leaves the egg at the further end of the cell; 

 the end of the egg is attached to the end of the cell near its center, 

 by a gluey substance or gell, which is a natural accompaniment 

 from the mother with the egg; the other end of the egg is found rest- 

 ing upon the floor of the cell. Thus the queen, by traversing the 

 hive in all its parts, seeking out cells that are cleaned by the work- 

 ing bees, either tor storing honey or raising the young, her presence 

 as well as existence is known by the whole family, and each indivi- 

 dual in the whole community is prompted to labor in the most in- 

 dustrious and energetic manner, in the respective offices which are 

 assigned them, (not by the queen,) but by the eternal and unerring 

 laws of instinct. 



The government of a hive of bees is not one of force, but one of 

 mutual benefit, as a republican government should be. The instincts 

 of the different orders of bees are so made to harmonize, that while 

 each seeks his own good and pleasure, he promotes that of others. 

 The queen is as much the creature of necessity, as any other indi- 

 vidual in the community. I have illustrated most of the foregoing 

 sentiments by a variety of experiments, some of which were ocu- 

 lar and irrefutable; one, to a single point only, I will here relate. 



On the 6th day of July, 183S, I took the queen from a first swarm 

 out of the same hive that season, and inserted a common pin through 

 her chest, which killed her. I then confined the queen with the pin 

 in the center of a very fine but strong string, about eighteen inches 

 in length, the ends of which I fastened to the two opposite corners 

 of the hive near the top, by means of little nails, in such a manner 

 that her lifeless majesty was suspended on one side of the hive 



