November 7, 1865. ] 



JOUKN.iL OF nOimCULTURE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



395 



contraetcil and obscuro entrance, commenced lavinp ilrono eggs 

 only, Imt after iMiiii^; munveil to ii liive of a ililTurent ciiu- 

 struction slie graiUinUy left otT drone-lireeilhiH, and deposited 

 the eggs of workers in the nHnal manner, lieasoning ou those 

 facts, he asks, " Is there any reason to doubt that these drono 

 eggs were hiid by the (lUeon before, and the worker eg(^s after, 

 her impregnation ? " To this ipiestion I should, only a few 

 weeks ago, have replied that there is the greate.-it reason for 

 doubting it, and that as far as my observations exteml, when 

 once egg-laying commeneos cither in the virgin or iin[iregiiated 

 queen bee, all disposition to seek intercourse with the male is 

 for ever at an end. It is, however, but justice to Mr. Langstroth 

 to state that circumstances have recently come under my ob- 

 servation whieli tend to throw doubts on the conclusion at 

 which I had arrived on this jioint, and, at the same time, con- 

 firm the views of my tnins-Atl.anlii' cuntemporary. What these 

 circumstances were will be related iu due course. 



I ouce witnessed an instance in which a young queen began 

 by laying a large jiatch of drone brood in worker cells, and 

 another iu whicli worker and drone brood was most singularly 

 intermixed. Iu both these cases, which were related in " our 

 Journal " at the time, this abnonual drone production soon 

 came to an end, ami workers only were bred in the ordinary 

 manner. My own theory is, tliat in both those queens there was 

 some slight temporary defect in the action of the delicate volun- 

 tary muscles which regulate the fecundation, and consequent | 

 sex, of the eggs before they are deposited, which defect disap- 

 peared as they advanced in age. 



To come then to more recent experience. A fine Ligurian 

 queen, artificially reared and hatched on the Sth of June, laid 

 eggs on the tenth day, which tm-ned out to be, for the most 

 part, those of drones," interspersed with a few workers. This 

 phenomenon continued throughout the summer until the popu- 

 lation of her hive having become very much diminished, I 

 added to it the inliidjitants of a condemned stock, ultimately 

 destroying its quasi-mother and substituting for her a fertile 

 Ligurian queen. .Mtliough this drone-breeder was never very 

 prolific, and laid all her eggs iu worker cells, the small drones 

 produced by her have turned out extremely valuable, as we 

 shall see. 



Peculiar circumstances, which I need not at present make 



and transferred to the new domicile, but all in vain, no queen 

 could I see, and, dreading a re])etition of the operation in tho 

 face of so many foes and equally fearing to leave her fate ia 

 uncertainty, I anxiously examined tho few stragglers remain- 

 ing in the now unfuniished habitation. Amongst them, to my 

 great joy, n])|)oared the missing queen, which I ut once care- 

 fully took n\) in my hand with the view of transfomng her to 

 her new haliitation. Wliilst in tho very act of doing this, she 

 was pounced ujjon by a marauding bee, locked in whoso diro 

 embrace she rolled to the bottom of the new hive, the bees in 

 which were now in a state of tho utmost agitation fi'om the re- 

 moval ami tlie incessant attacks of a fast-increasing cloud o£ 

 marauders! What was now to be done? Nothing, but again 

 to lift out the Combs and rescue the queen, if hajily she had not 

 already received some fatal injury. This was elTected as ra- 

 I'iilly as ))ossible, ami the poor queen appeared still locked in 

 tlie ileadly embrace of her fi>o. Taking both in tny hand, I 

 quickly crushed the life out of the aggressor, and most 

 apiarians will, I think, sympathise with the feeling of relief 

 I experienced at finding that the royal and unoffeiuling object ' 

 of this fierce attack had escaped uninjured. Her troubles were, 

 however, not yet entirely over, for scarcely had I freed her 

 from the mandibles of her first antagonist, which still kept 

 their hold with bull-dog-like tenacity even when tlie body to 

 which they had belonged was crushed into a shapeless mass, 

 than, whilst still in my hand, she was laid hold of by another 

 marauder. To this would-be regicide I speedily administered 

 tho coup de prnci', popped the queen between a couple of the 

 exposed combs, and covered the hive with its crown-board as 

 speedily as possible. Its entrance having also been contracted, 

 a vigorous resistance was now offered to the marauders, who, 

 finding their efforts unavailing, speedily desisted from the 

 attack. This occurrence, whilst it proves that marauding bees 

 will readily assail the queens of such hives as they are de- 

 sirous of plundering, scarcely seems to me to bear out the 

 theory that such assaults by isolated stragglers are the cause to 

 which we must attribute regicidal attacks on queens by their 

 own workers, since it cannot fail to be observed that whilst 

 this distressed monarch was struggling with her would-be 

 assassin in her own hive and amidst her own subjects, al- 

 though not one attempted to aid her, there was at the same 



public, but which, being of absorbing interest to myself, will, I ' time not the slightest symptom of any tendency among them 



doubt not, when related^at no very distant period, excite some 

 attention in the apiarian world, have induced me to raise a 

 few young queens rather late in the season, and to watch them 

 with more than ordinary vigilance. As their history has been 

 attended by some curious facts, a succinct narrative may not 

 be without interest. 



The first, hatched on the 22nd of August, the fifteenth day 

 after the formation of the artificial swarm, laid eggs on the 

 yth of September, being then eighteen days old, and is now at 

 the head of a strong colony, built up by the gradual and careful 

 addition of broodcombs. 



The second, hatched the same day and from the same brood- 

 comb as the preceding, fell a victim to a regicidal attack, as 

 related in page 26S, on her return from an apparently success- 

 ful wedding fiight, being at the time but thirteen days old. 



The third, hatched on the 24th of .-Vugust (the eleventh day), 

 did not lay eggs until the 25th of September, having then at- 



to what has been not inaptly tenned '• the regicidal frenzy." 



The fifth queen, hatched on the same day as the fourth, has 

 developed some extraordinary phenomena, wliich have caused 

 me, as before intimated, to modify the views I had previously 

 entertained with regard to the indisposition of virgin queens 

 to seek intercourse with the males when egg-laying has once 

 been fairly commenced. When she was about ten days old I 

 noticed a single egg in a worker cell, which appeared to be the 

 signal for the destruction of a few full-sized drones which 

 existed in the hive at the time. More eggs were gradually 

 deposited in the adjoining cells, and aU receiving the raised 

 convex coverings appropriate to drones, whilst the abdomen of 

 the queen (a very small one) remained undistended, I doubted 

 not that she would turn out a confirmed drone-breeder. When 

 rather over twenty days old. I noticed, much to my astonish- 

 ment, a remarkable change in her appearance, which suddenly 

 assumed the graceful degree of embonpnint proper to an im- 



taiued the mature age of thirty-two days ! As two days is the ' pregnated queen. This was accompanied by an equally notable 



general time which elapses between fecundation and actual 



egg-Iayiug, it follows that she must have exceeded by about ten 



days the before-mentioned limit prescribed by the immortal 



Huber. Notwithstanding this delay she has turned out per- 



iftctly fertile, and has recruited the waning population of her 



hive bj' the welcome addition of a goodly multitude of late-bred 



workers. 



The fourth, hatched 5th of September (the eleventh day), laid 

 eggs on the 2Uh of September, being nineteen days old. The 

 season being so far advanced, it was of course necessary to 

 increase the scanty pojiulation of these late-formed stocks as 

 rapidly as possible by the adchtion of broodcombs from other 

 colonies. No sooner, therefore, was the welcome fact ascer- 

 tained that egg-laying had fairly commenced, than I set to work 

 to shift this small colony into a full-sized hive with the view of 

 affording sufficient room for the accommodation of additional 

 ibroodcombs. The day happened to be very warm, and, in 

 defiance of Dr. Gumming, marauding bees were provokingly 

 numerous. I therefore expedited proceedings as much as 

 possible, consistently with keeping a bright look-out for the 

 juvenile matron, for whose safety I was necessarily most 



change in the manner of her ovipositiou, which, from being 

 sparse and unequal, became copious and regular. Soon after- 

 wards it also became evident that her progeny would not be 

 entirely of the male sex, a few cells of worker brood ap])earjng 

 here and there amidst the protruding cradles of the drones ; 

 and this proportion has gradually and steadily increased until, 

 I have every reason to believe, she has assumed the status of 

 a fully-developed queen, bi'eeding workers only, as is proper at 

 this season. I need hardly say that I have watched the phe- 

 nomena exhibited by this queen with the most lively interest 

 — an interest wliich has not been diminished by the fact that 

 they have upset an opinion long held by me, and heretofore 

 promulgated in these pages. I might, of course, presfrve 

 my tlieorv- intact by ascribing the production of drone eggs to 

 the i)rescnce of fertile workers, but all the probabilities appear 

 to be so much the other way, that I am impelled to the con- 

 viction that this queen commenced laying male eggs whilst 

 yet a virgin, and that after impregnation dioue-production 

 diminished and ultimately ceased entirely. 



The sixth succeeded her hapless sister before referred to as 

 having fallen a victim to a regicidal attack by her own worliers. 



anxious. Comb after comb was lifted out, carefully scanned, ' She was hatched on the Gth September (the twelfth day), and 



