324 STATE BOAED OF AGKICULTURE. 



ten to twelve da3'^s from the starting of a queen from the worker larva the queen 

 issues from her cell. As the queen's develoioment is probably mainly clue to 

 superior character and quality of food^ it would stand to reason that queens from 

 the eggs are preferable ; and under normal circumstances I believe the bees in 

 nature thus start them nearly always. The best experience sustains this con- 

 clusion. As the proper food and temperature could best be secured in a full 

 colony — and here again the natural economy of the hive adds to our argument — 

 wo should infer that the best queens would come from strong colonies. Exj^e- 

 rience also confirms this view. 



Five days after issuing from the cell, if the day is pleasant, the queen goes 

 forth on her "marriage flight," otherwise she will improve the first pleasant 

 day for this purpose. If she fails to find an admirer the first day, she will go 

 forth again and again till she succeeds. If the queen is observed upon her 

 return from the weddiug tour, it may be easily determined Avhether or no she 

 has been successful, for if she has she will bear suspended to her body the 

 organs of the drone. If tlie queen lays any eggs before meeting the drone, or 

 if for any cause she fails to meet the drone, the eggs will of course only produce 

 drone bees. About two days after fertilization takes place the queen commences 

 under normal circumstances to lay worker eggs, and the first year lays few 

 others. 



The queen, when considered in relation to the other inhabitants of the col- 

 ony, possesses a surprising longevity. It is not uncommon for her to attain the 

 age of three years in the full possession of her powers, while queens have been 

 known to live even five years. Queens, often at the expiration of one, two, 

 three, or four years, depending ujjon their vigor and excellence, either .cease to 

 be fertile or else become impotent to lay any but drone eggs, the spermatheca 

 having become emptied of the seminal iluid. In such cases the workers usually 

 supersede the queen ; that is, they destroy the old queen and start queen cells 

 for the purpose of rearing young, fertile, and vigorous queens. 



The function of the queen is simply to lay eggs, and thus keep the colony 

 populous ; and this she does with an energy that is fairly startling. A good 

 queen in her best estate will lay two or three thousand eggs a day. Yet with 

 even these figures as an advertisement, the queen bee can not boast of superla- 

 tive fecundity, as the queen white-ant — an insect closely related to the bees 

 in habits, though not in structure, as the white-ants are lace-wings and belong 

 to the sub-order K"europtera, which includes our day-flies, dragon flies, etc. — is 

 known to lay over 80,000 eggs daily. Yet this poor helpless thing whose abdo- 

 men is the size of a man's thumb, and composed almost wholly of eggs, while 

 the rest of her body is not larger than the same in our common ants, 'has no 

 other amusement. She cannot walk, she can not even feed herself or care for 

 her eggs. What wonder then that she should attempt big things in the way of 

 egg -laying? She has nothing else to do or to feel proud of. Different queens 

 vary as much in fecundity as do different breeds of fowls. Some queens are so 

 prolific that they fairly demand hives of India rubber to accommodate them, 

 kee^Ding their hives fairly gushing with bees and profitable activity, while others 

 are so inferior that the colonies make a poor sickly eft'ort to survive at all, and 

 usually succumb early, before those adverse circumstances which are ever wait- 

 ing to confront all life on the globe. 



The old poetical notion that the queen is the revered and admired sovereign 

 of the colony, whose pathway is ever lined by obsequious courtiers, whose per- 

 son is ever the recipient of loving caresses, and whose Avill is law in this bee-hive 



