THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



187 



the Representatives' Hall of the State 

 House in Boston, before the Massa- 

 chusetts State Agricultural Society, a 

 portion of the lecture being devoted 

 to the anomalous, but now univer- 

 sally known, fact that bees when de- 

 prived of their queen or mother-bee 

 will, by some process or means as 

 yet unexplained, so operate upon a 

 worm or larva, that left untouched, 

 would become a worker or barren 

 female, as to render her organs of 

 reproduction fertile, the change pro- 

 duced even affecting her shape and 

 size, as well as her after habits of 

 hfe. 



A writer in the Maine Farmer 

 made a report (though with some 

 inaccuracies) of my remarks, caUing 

 them " new, interesting, and instruct- 

 ive ;" but very soon afterwards the 

 editor of a Portland, Me., paper, 

 under date of April ii, 1842, as- 

 sailed both lecture and lecturer with 

 a savagely severe and denunciatory 

 criticism, calling the former "a bun- 

 gling piece of nonsense, of a con- 

 temptible sort, and full of absurd 

 statements," and declaring the latter 

 to be " wholly ignorant of the sub- 

 ject upon which he undertook to en- 

 ligliten others." Specially severe 

 was he upon my statement that a 

 queen bee can be manufactured out 

 of the worm of a working bee or neu- 

 ter. " The thing is as impossible," 

 he added, " as it would be to make 

 a cow out of an ox" and " nothing 

 can exceed the contemptible folly of 

 book-worms in the silly stories of the 

 ancients about making queen bees 

 out of workers." What ancient 

 writers treat of this subject the critic 

 did not say. I made no reply to 

 this onslaught preferring to be 

 guided by Solomon's advice (Prov. 

 xxvi : 4), and to let time determine 

 truth. 



This reminiscence came to my 

 mind as I stood, a few days since, in 

 the apiary of Mr. H. Alley, in Wen- 

 ham, Mass., and witnessed the won- 

 derfully skilful and truly scientific 



operations of this most expert bee- 

 keeper. He makes a business of 

 breeding queens, selling them when 

 ready for market, and sending them 

 in little boxes adapted to the purpose, 

 to purchasers in all parts of the coun- 

 try. He and many other apiarists 

 are actually accomplishing the thing 

 declared to be "as impossible as to 

 make a cow out of an ox." He has, 

 this very centennial year, sent to cus- 

 tomers more than 750 of these "ox- 

 cow " queens, and will sell more 

 before the close of the season. 



As is well known, the Italian bees, 

 imported into the United States about 

 fifteen years since, are the favorite of 

 very many of the present bee masters. 

 They were not known here in my bee- 

 keeping days (1840 to 1 858), we hav- 

 ing the English bee imported by the 

 early colonists, a much more pugna- 

 cious insect, and said to be less ac- 

 cumulative of honey than the Italian, 

 while the Italian queen is said to be 

 more prolific of eggs, and therefore 

 a hive of Italian is more densely 

 peopled than a hive of English bees. 



I well remember how difficult it 

 was, in former days, for those who 

 knew only the English bee, to under- 

 stand the poet Virgil's description of 

 the queen, he, however, erroneously 

 calling it the king. I translate the 

 passage from his Fourth Georgic : 



Glowing with yellow scales and daz- 

 zling hue, 



His body marked with golden bauds 

 we view — 



If safe this King, one mind abides in 

 all— 



If lost, in discord dire and feuds they 

 fall; 



Destroy their work, waste all their 

 gathered store. 



Dissolve all bonds, nor are a nation 

 more. 



If he but live ruling the glowing hive, 



All are content, the fertile race survive. 



Him they admire, with joyful hum sur- 

 round, 



While labor thrives and honeyed sweets 

 abound. 



Now we know that the poet's king 

 is a queen, or more truly a fertile 



