QUEENS. 



364 



QUEENS. 



elon^iited and amazingly increased in size, 

 lie looks in wonder, scarcely believing she 

 can be the same insect. She runs this way 

 and that, something as does a young bee, 

 only apparently much more excited at the 

 prospect of soaring aloft in the soft summer 

 air. Finally she tremblingly spreads those 

 long silky wings, and with a graceful move- 

 ment that we can not remember to have seen 

 equaled anywhere in the whole scope of an- 

 imated nature, she swings from her feet, 

 while her long body sways pendulously as 

 she hovers about the entrance of the hive. A 

 worker-bee hovers also about the entrance 

 and carefully takes its points when trying 

 its wings for the first time ; but it, seem- 

 ing to feel instinctively that it is of more 

 value to the colony than many, many work- 

 ers, the young queen with the most scrupu- 

 lous exactness notes every minute point and 

 feature of the exterior of her abode, often 

 alighting and taking wing again and again, 

 to make sure she knows all about it. When 

 we saw one for the first time go through all 

 these manoeuvres, we became impatient and 

 felt like saying, — 



''There! there! young lady; you certainly 

 know where you live now; do you suppose a 

 fellow can stay here all the afternoon, neg- 

 lecting his business, just to see you start off 

 on your first journey in life?" 



By and by she ventures to circle a little 

 way from home, always verging back soon, 

 but being gone longer and longer each time. 

 She sometimes goes back into the hive sat- 

 isfied, without going out of sight at all ; but 

 in this case she will be sm-e to take a longer 

 flight next day or a half-hour later in the 

 same day. During these seasons she seems 

 to be so intent on the idea she has in her lit- 

 tle head that she foi'gets all about surround- 

 ing things, and, instead of being frightened 

 as usual at your opening the hive, she will 

 pay no attention to you; but if you lift 

 up the comb she is on she will take her flight 

 from that as well as from anywhere else. We 

 have caught them in the hand at such times, 

 without their being frightened at all; but as 

 soon as they were allowed to go, they were 

 off as if nothing had happened. After she 

 is satisfied that she will know the place, she 

 ventures out boldly; and from the fact of her 

 circling right up in the air, we have, until 

 lately, supposed that fertilization took place 

 above the ken of human eyesight. This has 

 been shown to be a mistake. 



After a successful flight she returns with 

 the organs of the drone remaining attached 

 to her body. See Drones. This is a white 



substance, and is frequently so large as to be 

 plainly seen while she is on the wing. We 

 should think a queen is usually gone half an 

 hour, but we have seen them return fertiliz- 

 ed after an absence of not more than 10 or 15 

 minutes. This accomplished, she goes qui- 

 etly into the hive. The bees are much in- 

 clined to chase after her, and they some- 

 times pull at the protruding substance as if 

 they would drag it away. That they do so, 

 we think is pretty well proven. 



Until recently it was generally believed 

 that the queen met the drone only once, 

 notwithstanding the fact that Francis Ru- 

 ber, in his book, " New Observations,'' pub- 

 lished in 1814, made the statement that 

 queens might or might not take more than 

 one wedding-flight before beginning to lay. 

 But this seems to have been overlooked un- 

 til 1904, when considerable proof was ad- 

 duced to show that the same queen before 

 laying (not after) might not only take sever- 

 al wedding-flights, but come back on differ- 

 ent occasions with sure evidence of having 

 met a drone. 



While it seems to be pretty well proven 

 that the queen may take more than one 

 marriage-flight j»'ior to her laying, it is very 

 much doubted whether she ever takes a sec- 

 ond flight to meet the drone after laying, al- 

 though there are some facts that seem to 

 point that way. Against the belief that the 

 queen meets the drone after once beginning 

 to lay is the fact that she may receive on 

 one of her marriage-flights enough spermat- 

 ozoa—more than enough, in fact — to supply 

 her for all the eggs she can ever lay, even 

 though she lives to be five or six years old. 

 The number of spermatozoa has been vari- 

 ously estimated at from two to twenty 

 million, which she receives at one mating. 

 Even if we accept the lesser figure, a good 

 queen can scarcely lay more than two hun- 

 dred thousand eggs in a season, even in a 

 southern climate ; and she then would have 

 to live ten years, which she never does, to 

 use up all the spermatozoa she receives at 

 her one mating. 



For further particulars on this subject of 

 mating, see Drones. 



The next day after a succesful mating 

 you will, as a general rule, find the queen 

 depositing eggs. The average age at which 

 queens begin laying is about nine days ; 

 we generally wait ten days from the date 

 of hatching, and are then pretty siu'e of 

 finding them ready to send off. Between 

 impregnation and the time the first egg is 

 laid a remarkable change takes place. Aft- 



