the Honey Bee. 



227 



I made a regular search, but the queen was not in the 

 hive, and what had become of her I could not discover ; 

 the weather was fine and sunny, and whether she had 

 been tempted to leave the hive and had become chilled, 

 or whether she had been picked up by a bird, or what 

 else was her end, it is not for me to record. I can only 

 state the fact, that a queen bee will live for five years 

 and upwards, namely, from July 1852 to November 1857 ; 

 in fact, six summers or seasons. The actual duration of 

 life in the queen bee still remains undetermined. 



The period of five years and four months is, I believe, 

 the longest recorded duration of life in the queen bee. 

 Golding, in his " Shilling Bee Book'' (1847), speaks of a 

 queen bee with an imperfect wing existing in a hive 

 from May 1828 to June 1832; but this recorded life 

 exceeds his by a year and a quarter. 



I annex a table of the number of bees produced in the 

 hive during the summers of 1855, 1856, and 1857, making 

 a total, with the numbers shown in the last paper, of 

 108,026 as the produce of one insect, and this of one 

 kept in an artificial state. The numbers produced in a 

 hive not so confined as the Observatory hive must be 

 very great indeed, and the comparative numbers pro- 

 duced in each year bring us again to reconsider the dura- 

 tion of life in the queen bee. 



Table showing the actual number of bees produced in 

 the Observatory Hive during the years 1855, 1856, and 

 1857. 



2 Q 



