890 THE AMERICAN FARMER 



guard her, and keep the queen mother at a distance. She constantly utters a kind of plaint 

 ive, piping cry, that can be readily distinguished from the other sounds of the hive, and 

 which often seems to be answered by the mother queen, who will endeavor to get at the cell 

 and destroy her if possible, by stinging. This the workers seem to understand, and when 

 ever there is a prospect of a swarm being about to issue from the hive, they will concentrate 

 about the royal cells, and prevent the old queen from getting near them, even beating and 

 fighting her off, if she endeavors to get too near. But when the swarming time is over, or 

 the circumstances are such that there is no prospect of another swarm being sent out during 

 the season, the bees will not take measures to prevent the old queen from appeasing her wrath 

 and jealousy in the destruction of her prospective rivals, which she accomplishes without 

 mercy, with her poisonous sting, until one after another, the inmate of every royal cell is 

 lifeless. 



After the old queen has taken her departure with the first swarm, the young unhatched 

 queens are permitted by those that guard their cells to emerge at intervals of a few days in 

 order to prevent their meeting and destroying one another, as they would do at once if the 

 opportunity presented, for a young queen as soon as hatched, seems to be anxious to get rid 

 of every rival, and will not only endeavor to kill any other queen in the hive, but will even 

 attack the cells of the royal unhatched brood in the same manner as an old queen, if not 

 prevented by the bees that guard them. When the season for swarming is passed, the vigi 

 lance ceases in a great measure, and if two queens should happen to emerge at the same time, 

 and meet in deadly conflict, it is said by those who have studied closely the habits of these 

 insects, that instead of seeming to prevent the battles, the other bees appear to excite these 

 combatants to renewed attacks against each other, and will surround and bring them back to 

 the contest if they show any disposition to retreat or recede from each other, and when either 

 of the queens shows an inclination to approach her antagonist, all the bees forming about 

 them instantly give place to allow her sufficient room for the attack; also that the first use 

 which the victorious queen makes of her power, is to destroy all her future rivals in their 

 cells, while the other bees which are spectators to the scene, share in the spoil by greedily 

 devouring any food which may be found about the pupae, and will even turn cannibals by 

 sucking the fluids from tke bodies of these unhatched queens before they drag them out of 

 the cells. The life of a queen is from two to four years, the most prolific period being the 

 first two years. A young queen is more liable to produce a working progeny, and an old 

 one drones. 



Working Bees. The workers were formerly supposed to be of the neuter gender, 

 and are commonly called neuters; but it has become a fully established fact that they are 

 undeveloped female bees, and are hatched from the same kind of eggs or Iarva3 that the 

 queens are, these eggs being capable of producing either a queen or worker, according to 

 circumstances, the quality of the food, size of cell, etc., making the difference. These workers 

 perform all the labor of gathering honey, bee glue, pollen, secreting wax from honey, con 

 structing combs for honey and cells for hatching the young, feeding the young bees when 

 hatched, keeping the hive clean by carrying out the offal and their dead companions, as well 

 as keeping guard and combating any intruding enemy that may venture near. 



Average Life of Working Bees. The working bees live only a few weeks, so 

 that a hive is repeatedly renewed from the hatching of the eggs of the queen. These little 

 insects live from sixty to ninety days. In winter, when they are dormant, the time does not 

 count, and one of the objects in breeding is of course to lessen the time between the fall and 

 the spring, or to secure as early spring broods as possible. 



A Western apiarist gives the result of his experiment to ascertain the length of time bees 

 live during the working season, thus: &quot;I had a stand of the little black bees of the genuine 

 stingers, and on the morning of May 30th I killed the queen, and by carefully looking 

 through their hive I found one black drone, and destroyed that in the evening of the same 

 day. I put in a cell for a yellow queen on the 2d of June. She was hatched out, and there 

 were a few yellow bees in the hive on the 30th, in just twenty-one days from the time her 

 first eggs were deposited. On July 7th a few yellow bees were to be seen playing around 

 the hive; and on the 13th day of July, just fourteen days from the time the yellow bees were 

 hatched out, a few were seen at work with the black bees. Now any one can see that if the 

 yellow bees hatched out in twenty-one days, the last black bees were all out by the 20th of 

 June; and if the yellow bees went to work on the 12th of July, the last of the black bees 

 must have gone to work on the 4th of July, making fourteen days from the time they were 



