538 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



the last queen introduced laid a few- 

 eggs before they killed her. I regret 

 exceedingly thiit I destroyed these 

 latter cells preparatory to introducing 

 another queen, as the one killed was 

 a bright Italian, and if she laid the 

 eggs for these latter cells, the young 

 queens would have told the tale, and 

 thrown light upon the matter. 



While I am unwilling to accord that 

 almost human intelligence to bees, 

 which some men do, yet may not their 

 instincts of self-preservation lead 

 them to steal eggs as well as honey 'i 

 I would much like to hear the experi- 

 ence of others on this subject. 



Easton.o* Pa. 



E.YChanee. 



Does the Queen Rale the Colony? 



J. A. WARD. 



It is supposed by many persons, 

 among whom there are some well in- 

 informed upon every branch of natural 

 history, that the queen-bee is an ab- 

 solute sovereign, and that she rules 

 her subjects— the worker bees— by her 

 royal edicts, from which there can be 

 no appeal; that she plans the swarm- 

 ing movement, and in her jealous rage 

 slaughters her royal offspring rather 

 than bear the presence of a rival 

 under the same roof with herself; and 

 that she will even secretly assassinate 

 her own tender princesses, while in 

 an undeveloped state, and before they 

 have emerged from the dark chambers 

 of embryonic life; that she is ter- 

 ribly lierce and unrelenting in battle, 

 when at war with a sister queen, into 

 whose vitals she will plunge her pois- 

 oned lance with the most deliberate 

 and deadly aim. And so the war is 

 prosecuted until the last rival lays 

 dead at her feet, or until some more 

 powerful princess of her own blood 

 has thrust her dagger into the heart 

 of the royal mother, and reigns her- 

 self supreme ; thus carrying out the 

 theory of the late Mr. Darwin,of "■ the 

 survival of the fittest." Outside of 

 the hive, however, the queen has the 

 name of being exceedingly timid, 

 never trying to defend herself, though 

 she may be roughly handled and have 

 every opportunity to use her sting if 

 she choose to do so. This I know to 

 be true, but as for the royal govern- 

 ment, lierce hatred for her young 

 queens, and bloody butchery of the 

 same, I believe to be a grand fabrica- 

 tion, having an existence only in the 

 fertile brain of some pugnacious 

 queen-fancier. 



But without further comment let us 

 examine the domestic affairs of the 

 hive household, and learn, if we can, 

 what is going on therein, and who 

 plans the work and hisses iliejob. The 

 queen, the mother of the hive, we 

 will (ind busy at her daily work, if in 

 the honey-producing season, moving 

 from cell to cell and inserting her 

 long body into each, depositing an 

 egg at the bottom, and in this steady 

 way will (ill many sheets of comb 

 during the lit liours. And while thus 

 engaged in lilling the position in the 

 hive that nature intended that she 

 should lill, wearing out her own life 



in reproducing her own kind, she 

 heeds not the busy scenes that are 

 taking place around her. The work- 

 ers, laden with honey and pollen, run 

 pell-mell over her back, and without 

 the least disturbance to her matronly 

 equilibrium, slie goes on attending to 

 her own business, and at the same 

 time allows all other members of the 

 hive to do the same. 



Occasionally, however, she is called 

 to a halt by some one or more workers, 

 laden with honey, whose instincts 

 have constituted them a self-ap- 

 pointed committee to feed the queen, 

 and from their hands (as it were) she 

 accepts the proffered food, receives 

 and returns the caresses of those who 

 have treated her so kindly, and then 

 with dignified deportment returns to 

 her labor. 



DDuring all this time, the workers, 

 divided by their natural instincts 

 into different departments of labor, 

 that the work of the hive may proceed 

 in perfect harmony, we find some 

 gathering honey from the fields, 

 others feeding and capping over brood, 

 others again carrying honey from its 

 scattered condition in the hive and 

 placing it in a compact manner above 

 the brood-nest, or in surplus boxes; 

 some mixing the bee-bread with 

 honey and placing it in a position 

 where it will be most easily reached 

 when wanted, either for the younger 

 bees or food for the laborers, where it 

 is also capped over by others than 

 those that place it in the cells. All 

 these different departments of labor 

 are being attended to at the same 

 time, and doubtless without the con- 

 sent, knowledge or orders of the 

 queen. 



We also notice bees stationed at 

 the entrance of the hive acting as 

 guards, which zealously keep out all 

 robber bees, wasps, bumblebees,ants, 

 roaches, etc,, etc., that are always on 

 the lookout, watching for a chance to 

 stick their noses into the sweet stores 

 treasured up on the inside of the hive. 



There is still another lot of bees in 

 and about the hive, from whose 

 actions we might readily conclude 

 were dead-heads, did we not know to 

 tlie contrary. These we see hanging 

 ing in festoons to the end of combs 

 and empty frames, many of them witli 

 their heels up and heads down, or 

 piled up, if the weather is very warm, 

 on the outside of the hive, looking 

 full, fat and sleepy, and apparently as 

 happy and contented as if they pos- 

 sessed honey enough to last them the 

 balance of their days. These are 

 doubtless wax-secreters, whose whole 

 duty appears to be to eat honey and 

 secrete wax, while others gather it 

 from their bodies and manufacture it 

 into beautiful combs. These comb 

 builders we can see with feet, teeth 

 and feeders busily engaged plying 

 their ingenious vocation." All these 

 different departments of labor and 

 apparent skill are doubtless performed 

 through or by the instincts of the 

 workers, and not at all l)y the orders 

 and supervision of the queen. 



Jjut to return to the queen: If she 

 ruled the hive wiUi sovereign power, 

 she would not be supplanted by the 

 workers when she becomes old and 



worn out and no longer able to keep 

 up the colony, but would remain mis- 

 tress of the" premises and keep her 

 subjects at work as long as a single 

 bee remained in the hive to obey her 

 royal commands. 



That the queen has nothing to do 

 with the swarming movement I have 

 had abundant proof, while watching 

 the bees when swarming. Upon one 

 occasion I saw the workers push the 

 queen off the alighting-board a number 

 of times before she would take to the 

 air. Every time that she was pushed 

 off she would return, until finally she 

 gave it up and took to the air with 

 the workers. Every one who keeps 

 bees knows how common it is for 

 them to swarm, and after being in the 

 air for a few minutes, to return to the 

 hive. I have upon several occasions 

 hived swarms that after remaining in 

 their new quarter's for half an hour or 

 so, returned to the old hive. 



What is the cause of such behavior? 

 Simply this : When the workers have 

 made due preparations for swarming, 

 they raise the alarm, which every 

 bee, through the gift of its inborn 

 instincts, understands, and they rush 

 out pell-mell,and in a large majority of 

 eases the queen catching the excite- 

 ment, rushes out witli the workers. 

 But at other times she is not quite so 

 easily excited, or is too busy to pay 

 any attention to the uproar, and re- 

 mains in the hive attending to her 

 business, and after the bees have 

 circled in the air for several minutes, 

 or perhaps settled, they make the dis- 

 covery that their maternal ancestor 

 has been left behind ; and, knowing 

 from their instincts that a colony 

 without a queen or mother-bee would 

 soon perish, they return to the old 

 home. I have known swarms to come 

 out and return in this manner three 

 or four times before they could induce 

 the queen to follow, 



I was taught to believe by writers 

 on bee-culture, that if two queens were 

 put in the same hive, that the bees 

 would clear a space, form a ring in 

 the centre into which the queens 

 would enter, and without much pre- 

 liminary sparring would pitch in for 

 "the survival of the fittest;" con- 

 tinuing the bout until one of them is 

 placed hors de combat. This is cer- 

 tainly a mistake in a inajority of cases, 

 so far as my observation extends, and 

 I have united a great ■ many bees, 

 turning the queens in with the 

 workers, and upon examination in a 

 few hours afterwards have rarely 

 failed to lind one of the queens in the 

 centre of a ball of worker bees, where 

 they would generally keep her 

 until she was dead, smothered and 

 squeezed to death. Hence we find 

 that the workers kill the surplus 

 queens, and that the queens tliem- 

 selves have nothing to do vi'ith it. 



I also find stated in books written 

 upon the bee-subject,that the workers 

 have to guard all the queen-cells after 

 they are built and the eggs placed in 

 them, to keep the old queen from 

 destroying them before they are 

 matured. ' This may and may 7iot be 

 true; my own opinion being in the 

 negative. As the workers destroy all 

 the extra queens that are matured. 



