May 28, 187-L ] 



JOURNAL OP HOKTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



437 



10th of December, we notice it thus early because the prize list 

 is one of the most liberal we have seen. There are proposed to 

 be eighteen three-guinea silver cups for poultry, the same num- 

 ber for Pigeons, and four for cage birds, in addition to the money 

 prizes. We hope subscribers will promptly aid the Committee. 



THE QUEEN BEE. 



I MUST believe that the views set forth by Mr. Pettigrew are 

 conscientiously believed and entertained, yet I cannot and will 

 not excuse him if he refuses or neglects to adopt the means of 

 testiug, by properly conducted experiments and observations, 

 the various points at issue. In these days of advauced know- 

 ledge in almost every department of inquiry, mere assertion and 

 theory are valueless in the face of facts, while haphazard 

 guesses and inferences are worse than useless. 



1st. In regard to the evolution of the worker bee. What is 

 the proof advanced by Mr. Pettigrew that it is twenty-one days 

 in the cell 1 He says, " The readers of this Journal know 

 that I have again and again advised them to turia the bees out of 

 hives on the twenty-first day after the swarms have been re- 

 moved from them. . . . We find if we do it on the twentieth 

 day after swarming all the workers are not hatched, and that 

 those unhatched leave their cells after all the bees have been 

 removed. This I have seen again and again — scores of times ; 

 therefore I prefer my own and others' statement of days to 

 Mr. Lowe's twenty days." 



Now, in regard to the advice here given of waiting till the 

 twenty-first day before turning out the bees, my only remark is 

 that if the object be to have all the brood hatched — drones as 

 well as bees — the period should be still further extended two or 

 three days. But let me ask if this is the proof I am called upon 

 to accept as to the precise number of days occupied in the evolu- 

 tion of the worker bee ? This, I apprehend, is no proof at all ; 

 it is merely an inference, a conjecture, which settles nothing. In 

 order to ascertain the true period of development of the worker 

 bee, we must not only know the hour and day on which the bee 

 was hatched, but the hour and day on which the egg was de- 

 posited. For myself I claim no merit in stating that the worker 

 is not twenty-one days in the cell, but comes forth a perfect 

 insect on the twentieth day. I have simply verified by properly- 

 conducted experiments and observations that fact which Huber, 

 the " prince of apiarians," has long ago demonstrated, and 

 which has been acquiesced in and confirmed by Dr. Bevan, 

 Dr. Dunbar, the Rev. Mr. Langstroth, and many other eminent 

 students of bee life. 



It so happens that at this moment I have a case in point in 

 my apiary. A pretty strong hive lost its queen in the spring. 

 The bees held well together notwithstanding. On Saturday the 

 11th of April I introduced a fertile queen along with some two 

 or three hundred bees — the whole stock of a weak colony, and 

 joined them to the queenless hive. Some ten or twelve hours 

 after I examined the hive, and observed, on drawing up a frame, 

 that a considerable number of eggs were deposited. On Friday 

 the 1st of May current, at the same hour, or exactly twenty days 

 after the introduction of the queen, I pulled up the frame and 

 found several young bees traversing the comb. If twenty-one 

 days were required for the development of the insect, I should 

 have seen no hatched bees till at the least twenty hours later, 

 even on the assumption that eggs were deposited the very 

 moment the queen was introduced. 



2nd. What is Mr. Pettigrew's proof as to the transference of 

 eggs by the bees from one cell to another ? He says, " Hundreds 

 if not thousands of times have we seen eggs in royal cells that 

 were not there when the queens and swarms were removed. 

 The eggs had been in worker cells, and removed by the bees to 

 royal cells. This fact upsets the position Mr. Lowe has taken in 

 asserting that the bees do not transfer eggs from worker cells to 

 royal cells. If Mr. Lowe will visit me in a month or two I will 

 show him scores of empty queen cells as soon as the queens 

 have been taken from them to their hives, and three days later 

 I will show him the same cells occupied by brood being reared 

 into queens." 



Now, if these were facts, I admit at once that my position 

 would indeed be upset. I3ut here let me suggest. May not 

 Mr. Pettigrew be under a mistake in fancying that these royal 

 cells found tenanted by larvre three days after the queen's 

 removal were actually the identical royal cells in existence 

 previously, or, if so, that they contained no egg at the time in 

 question? There is such a thing as an optical delusion ; and I 

 therefore fear that, however much I should be delighted in pay- 

 ing a visit to Mr. Pettigrew's apiary on other grounds, yet on 

 this I should, according to the old saying, simply have "my 

 coming for my going," and that our conclusions might be some- 

 what similar (though of course from entirely different causes) to 

 those narrated of two great statesmen, who, on entering the 

 House of Commons with optics a little obscured by a too long 

 sederunt after dinner, the one declared he thought he saw two 

 speakers in the chair, while the other emphatically asserted that 

 he could not even see one. Mr. Pettigrew'a straw hivea are so 



capacious, and no doubt have, like others of their kind, so many 

 concealed corners, that I fear our optics would also be obscured, 

 and that it would be impossible to pronounce with certainty as 

 to how the hive had been left regarding royal cells. Betides, 

 the habits of the bee are the same in England as in Scotland, 

 and I do not require to cross the border to be enlightened on 

 this point, for in all my experience, and it is not a little, I have 

 never witnessed the " facts " stated by Mr. Pettigrew in any 

 case of artificialising or queen-rearing. 



3rd. What is the proof furnished by Mr. Pettigrew as to tha 

 evolution of the queen bee in fourteen days ? 



Suppose Mr. Pettigrew's assumption is right, that eggs are 

 transferred from one cell to another by the workers, and that 

 eggs are set in royal cells by the bees after the departure of 

 the swarm and queen, and that such eggs so deposited be- 

 come fully developed into princesses in fourteen days there- 

 after ; — the fact that fourteen days only are required for the 

 perfecting of the royal bee from the period of its being trans- 

 ferred by the worker to the royal cell, is no proof that only four- 

 teen days are required from the emission of the egg from tho 

 mother queen to its complete evolution. The eggs take three days 

 in hatching, and unless Mr. Pettigrew can tell me the age of the 

 egg when it is, as he says, transferred into the royal cell, he can 

 have no data on which to found any conclusion whatever. Here 

 it is, I think, where Mr. Pettigrew has fallen into error. Queens 

 reared artificially — i.e., from eggs deposited in worker cells, and 

 queens reared naturally — i.e., from eggs deposited in royal cells, 

 occupy in reality the same period of time in their evolution. 

 When, therefore, we say that a queen is reared artificially in 

 thirteen or fourteen days, we count not from the time the egg ia 

 deposited, but from the period the larva destined for royal 

 honours is chosen and operated on by the workers ; and when 

 we say that a queen is reared from the egg, either naturally or 

 artificially, in sixteen days, we, of course, reckon from the 

 moment the &^g is deposited by the queen. The difference of 

 two or three days between the two methods of procedure — that 

 from the egg and that from the larva — is accounted for by the 

 bees availing themselves of their power of operating on the 

 worker larva, and not on the unhatched egg. Any discrepancies 

 in the time of evolution after such operations are commenced, 

 depend, no doubt, principally upon the age of the larva so 

 chosen. I have had queens reared artificially in cases where 

 they had a choice of larva! of all ages, varying from twelve to 

 fourteen days, and one from the Egyptian race in somewhat less 

 than twelve days; but in cases where the bees had no such 

 choice, when they were only supplied with newly-deposited 

 eggs, the period of evolution I found to be about sixteen days. 

 My experiments in the rearing of queens are so mimerous that 

 it would only be occupying unnecessarily space in giving par- 

 ticulars and dates ; but I think it may be safely said that from 

 twelve to thirteen days is the average period required in the 

 evolution of the queen bee from the moment the egg is hatched, 

 which, as I have already stated, is three days, making, therefore, 

 about sixteen days in all. 'Though this appears to be the 

 normal time, yet I have known instances when the period of 

 evolution was prolonged several days, owing, no doubt, to certain 

 conditions of the hive, weather, and temperature. 'The effects 

 of temperature exercise, according to all naturalists, considerable 

 influence in the maturing and development of insect life. The 

 general rule, however, holds good, notwithstanding these dis- 

 crepancies, which are merely exceptional. 



Now as to the contests of queens. I simply pointed out to 

 Mr. Pettigrew what the rule was in the circumstances to which 

 he referred — namely, when "two swarms are united" or 

 " flung together " with, of course, fertile queens. In such a 

 case the queens are not allowed to do battle, and one is always 

 destroyed by the bees. If Mr. Pettigrew has witnessed a con- 

 flict in such circumstances, I should be obliged for the narrative ; 

 of course an exception to any rule may occur while there is a 

 possibility, but all I can say is that in aU my experience I have 

 never seen it broken. In regard to virgin queens the case is very 

 different, and mortal combatsfrequently take place between them; 

 and even with mother queens when forced into contact under 

 peculiar circumstances, such as when you confine two together 

 along with a few bees, I have noticed them engage in conflict, 

 the bees being too few to encase either, and thus prevent it ; but 

 even in such unfavourable conditions, where the natural instinct 

 of the bees must be affected, I have seen such an encasement 

 resorted to. The exhibition of queen duels by Major Munn, 

 referred to by Mr. Pettigrew, must have been under such 

 circumstances as these ; but most probably by virgin queens, 

 similar to the interesting narrative given some four years ago 

 in these pages by that excellent and trustworthy correspon- 

 dent "R. S." 



Lastly, in regard to the fertility of the queen bee, and that 

 "some trustworthy experiments have indicated four and six 

 thousand eggs per day each queen," I am informed that thia 

 statement is from an American source, and appeared in thia 

 Journal some years ago. I cannot lay my hands upon it, but 

 perhaps it is not of much consequence. The real point ia, not 



