WHEN QUEENS ARE BRED. 49 



one leaving, they form a number of queen cells, usu- 

 ally from three to eight, in which the queen deposits 

 eggs. This is done at intervals up to the time when 

 the first swarm departs, at which time one or more 

 of the cells are sealed ; the remaining ones are sealed 

 afterwards, in the order of their respective ages, all 

 being finished by the sixth day after the swarm has 

 left, (the old queen invariably accompanying the first 

 swarm) at which time, or within twenty-four hours 

 thereafter, (being seven days from the departure of 

 the first swarm) the first sealed queen. emerges, and 

 usually in three days from her birth she accompanies 

 the second swarm. 



The second queen accompanies a third swarm on 

 the second or third day from the second ; a fourth, 

 and even a fifth swarm sometimes follow, at intervals 

 of every other day. All the swarms from the same 

 hive must depart within nineteen days from the time 

 the first one left; after which time no more can 

 depart for a period of from forty to sixty days : 

 instances of a hive swarming at a second period dur- 

 ing the same season are rare. Bees also rear queens 

 from worker larvae, when deprived of their queen.* 



* " The fact is said to have been known long before Schirach 

 wrote : M. Vogel and Signer Monticelli, a Neapolitan professor, 

 have both asserted this ; the former states it to have been known 

 upwards of fifty years, the latter a much longer period ; he says 

 that the Greeks and Turks in the Ionian Islands are well acquainted 

 with it, and that in the little Sicilian Island of Faviguana, 

 the art of producing queens has been known from very remote 

 antiquity ; he even thinks that it was no secret to the Greeks and 

 Romans." Bevan. 3 



