188 EEV. II. E. TEEL — BEES ANB BEE-KEEPING. 



teentli day of the allotted term arrived, having a spare queen from 

 the uniting of two weakish stocks, and having no immediate use 

 for her, I placed her in the ohservatory-hive to see whether the 

 bees would accept her as their sovereign instead of continuing to 

 hatch out the queen-cell. I did not place her in a queen-cage, 

 which is a little wire prison capable of being screwed on to the 

 comb, in which the queen can remain in safety for a couple of 

 days, whilst the bees make acquaintance with her by their power 

 of smell and the touch of antenufe. My queen had no such 

 protection, and the bees, instead of recognising her authority, and 

 accepting her as their sovereign, drove her into one corner of the 

 hive, surrounded her till she was lost to sight in the midst of 

 a thick ball of bees, and suffocated or starved her to death. Her 

 dead body was found at the bottom of the hive next morning. 

 The bees then proceeded with the hatching out of one of the 

 queens. The young queen produced found her way down a long 

 glass-covered tunnel, by means of which my bees have access from 

 the study to the open air, met some one favoured drone, was 

 fertilised, found her way back through the window and up the 

 tunnel, and soon commenced laying the eggs, which produced the 

 present occupants of the hive, or, to speak more correctly, their 

 elder sisters, for the first generation must have passed away. 



All this took place at the end of July or beginning of August 

 in last year. I therefore know exactly the age of my queen'; a 

 knowledge which, in practical bee-keeping, carried on with a view 

 to profit, is of immense advantage to the bee-farmer. The age of 

 every queen should be noted down in a book, or what is perhaps 

 better, written on a tablet or a slate fastened in the roof or cover 

 of a modern hive. It is not well to keep queens, if bee-keeping is 

 to be profitable, after their third year. Some persons would say 

 not after their second year. 



The discovery of the fact that bees have the power of converting 

 worker-eggs into queens, made, I believe, by a German clergyman 

 named Schirach at the end of the last century, has caused quite a 

 revolution in the art of bee-keeping. Instead of allowing his bees 

 to swarm according to their liking, going away perhaps out of his 

 reach and being lost to him for ever, or hanging in idle clusters 

 for several days beforehand, the modern bee-keepers make what are 

 called artificial swarms. That is to say, when the hive is full of 

 bees and brood, when honey is abundant, and the weather warm, 

 he removes from his bar-framed hive two or more combs abounding 

 in brood and of course with the queen upon one of them. He 

 places these frames in a fresh hive, which must be of the same 

 dimensions as the old one, or the frames will be found not to fit 

 it, and trouble will arise in various ways. He then removes the 

 old hive from its stand, and places the fresh hive in its place. The 

 bees returning from their foi'aging expeditions enter the accustomed 

 opening, and though the appearance of the hive inside is somewhat 

 changed from what it was when they last left, from there being so 

 much fewer combs, still their queen is there and there is brood to 



