QUEENS. 



362 



QUEENS. 



would have paid no attention to her had she 

 not nttered this well-known note. When 

 you have once heard it you will recognize it 

 ever afterward. Queens, when placed near 

 together in cages, will often call and ans- 

 wer each other, in tones that we have sup- 

 posed might be challenges to mortal combat. 

 Some queens received one summer from 

 W.P.Henderson, of Mnrfreesboro, Tenn., 

 called so loudly when placed on our table , 

 that they could be heard clear across a long 

 room. One voice would be on a high, shrill 

 key and another a deep bass, while others 

 were intermediate. On watching closely a 

 tremulous movement of the wings was no- 

 ticed while the queen was uttering the 

 note, and one might infer from this that the 

 sound is produced by the wings, but this is 

 probably not the case. Some one, we think, 

 reported having heard a queen squeal, both 

 of whose wings had been entirely clipped 

 off. That these sounds from the queen 

 have the power of controlling certain move- 

 ments of the bees we are well aware, but we 

 do not know just how nor to what extent 

 this influence works. 



VIRGIN QUEENS. 



The newly hatched queen is termed a vir- 

 gin simply to distinguish her from queens 

 that have been fertilized by the drone and 

 are laying. Virgin queens, when first hatch- 

 ed, are sometimes nearly as large as a fer- 

 tile queen, but they gradually decrease in 

 size, until when three or four days old they 

 often look so small and insignificant that a 

 novice is disgusted with their appearance, 

 and if he is hasty pronounces them good 

 for nothing. For the first week of their 

 lives they crawl about much as an ordinary 

 young worker does, and it is often very diffi- 

 cult, if not almost impossible, to find them, 

 unless an amount of time is taken that is 

 more than a busy apiarist can well afford to 

 spare. We advise not to look for them, but 

 to insert a frame having some unsealed lar- 

 vae just hatched from the egg; then if no cells 

 are started, you can decide the queen is 

 there without looking further. This plan 

 answers a threefold purpose: It tells at 

 a glance whether the queen is in the hive 

 all right or not; for the very moment she is 

 lost they will start more queen-cells on it; 

 it enables the bees to start another queen, 

 in case the queen is lost by any accident on 

 her wedding-flight, which is frequently the 

 case; and, lastly, it serves as a sort of nucleus 

 to hold the bees together and to keep them 

 from going out with the queen on her wed- 



ding-trip, which they are much disposed 

 to do, if in a small nucleus containing no 

 brood. Unsealed brood in a hive is a great 

 safeguard against accidents of all sorts, and 

 we have often started a young queen to lay- 

 ing by simply giving the bees some eggs 

 and unsealed brood. Whether it caused her 

 to rouse up and take her wedding-flight, or 

 whether she had taken it, but was for some 

 reason idle, we can not say; but this we 

 know, that young queens that do not lay at 

 two weeks of age will often commence, when 

 eggs and larvae are given to their colonies. 

 It may be that the sight of eggs and larvae 

 suggests to them the next step in affairs, or 

 it may induce the workers to feed them, as 

 they do a laying queen, an vmusual quantity 

 of food. 



AGE AT WHICH VIRGIN QUEENS TAKE THEIR 

 WEDDING-FLIGHT. 



Our books seem to disagree considerably 

 on this point, and we are afraid many of 

 the book-makers find it easier to copy from 

 the sayings of others than to try practi- 

 cal experiments. Some go so far as to say 

 that the queen goes out to meet the drones 

 the day after leaving the cell. Others fix the 

 wedding-flight from two to ten days after 

 birth. It is quite likely that some difference 

 arises from the fact that queens often stay in 

 the cell a day or two after they are strong 

 enough to leave it.* Sometimes a queen will 

 be found walking about the combs when she 

 is so young as to be almost white; we have 

 often seen beginners rejoice at their beauti- 

 ful yellow queens, saying that they were yel- 

 low all over, without a bit of black on them; 

 but when looked at again, they would be 

 found to be as dark as the generality of 

 queens. At other times when they come out 

 of the cell they will look, both in color and 

 size, as if they might be three or four days old. 

 The queens in our apiary generally begin to 

 crawl about the entrance of the hive, possi- 

 bly looking out now and then, when 5 or 6 

 days old. The next day, supposing of course 

 we have fine weather, they will generally go 

 out and try their wings a little. These flights 

 are usually taken in the warmest part of the 

 afternoon. We know of no prettier or more 

 interesting sight to the apiarist than the 

 first flight of a queen. Perhaps a few hours 

 before he had looked at her, and been dis- 

 appointed at her small and insignificant ap- 

 pearance ; but now, as she ventures out cau- 

 tiously on the alighting - board, with her 

 wings slightly raised, her tapering body 



* Recent reports state that queens were confined 

 in cells 4 or 5 days after they should have hatched. 



