THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



89 



A Usixrping "Worker. 



[Tlie following is communicated to the Bieu- 

 euzeituug hy Mr. A. Semlitsch, an experienced 

 and trustworthy bee-keeper, residing at Gratz, 

 in Austria:] 



"Queen bees do not usually begin to lay till 

 forty-eight hours after having had concourse 

 with a drone, and it would hence seem proba- 

 ble that several days at least might be required 

 to qualify a fertile worker for oviposition. The 

 following facts lead to a different conclusion: 

 I gave an Italian queen to a strong artificial 

 colony, which at first appeared (o have accepted 

 her, but gradually maifested increased evidence 

 of discontent. On the sixth day I examined 

 the hive, and found the queen enclosed in a 

 cluster of workers. I dispersed them by a few 

 whill's of smoke, and the queen moved ofi" unin- 

 jured and active among the crowd of other 

 workers. I then observed a fine royal cell on 

 one of the combs, which I destroyed, and closed 

 the hive. Re-opening it two daj's later, I no- 

 ticed a similar state of affiiirs, but on liberat- 

 ing the queen found her so much injured that 

 she died in fifteen minutes from the maltreat- 

 ment she had undergone. Two more royal cells 

 had been started, which I permitted to remain, 

 under the impression that they had been sup- 

 plied with eggs by the queen now dead. Not 

 till I discovered that I might wait till "the 

 Greek calends" before a living creature Avould 

 issue from these cells, did I suspect the truth; 

 and on closer examination I found drone brood 

 exclusively in the worker cells, and in the royal 

 cells dead and putrefying larva?. Here was 

 mauifestlj' a case where a fertile worker, wdiile 

 a queen was present in the hive, began to lay 

 eggs, supplanted the queen, and finally usurped 

 the throne." 



It is to be regretted that Mr. Semlitsch did 

 not ascertain whether any eggs were laid by the 

 finally rejected queen, after she was introduced. 



A Singular Hive. 



The wild honey bees, too, in their several 

 species, had peculiar charms for me. There 

 were the buff-colored carders, that erected over 

 the honey-jars domes of moss; the lapidary red- 

 tipped bees, that built amid the recesses of an- 

 cient cairns and in dry old stone walls, and 

 were so invincibly brave in defending their 

 homesteads that they never gave up the qua- 

 rel till they died; and above all the yellow-zoned 

 humble-bees, that lodged deep in the ground 

 along the dry sides of grassy banks; and were 

 usually wealthier in honey than any of their 

 congeners, and existed in larger communities. 

 But the herd-boys of the parish, and the foxes 

 of its woods and brakes, shared in my interest 

 in the wild honey bees, and, in the pursuit of 

 something else than knowledge, were ruthless 

 robbers of their nests. 



I often observed that the fox, with all his re- 

 puted shrewdness, is not particularly knowing 

 on the subject of bees. He makes as dead a set 

 on a wasp's nest as on that of the carder or 



humble bee, and gets, I doubt not, heartily 

 stung for his pains; for though as shown l.)y the 

 marks of his teeth, left on the fragments of pa- 

 per combs scattered al)out, ho attempts eating 

 the young wasps in the chrysalis state, the un- 

 devoured remains seem to argue that he is but 

 little pleased with them as food. 



There were occasions, however, on whicli 

 even the herd-boys met with only disappoint- 

 ment in their bee-hunting excursions; and in 

 one notable instance the result of the adventure 

 used to be spoken of in school and elsewhere as 

 something very horrible. A party of boys had 

 stormed a humble bee's nest on the side of an 

 old chapel-brae, and, digging inwards along the 

 narrow winding earth passage, thej^ at length 

 came to a grinning human skull, and saw the 

 bees issuing thick from out a round hole in its 

 base — the foramen mar/mim. The wise little 

 workers had actually formed their nest within 

 the hollow of the head once occupied by the 

 bus}' brain; and their spoilers, more scrupulous 

 than Sampson of old, who seems to have en- 

 joyed the meat brought forth out of the eater 

 and the sweetness extracted from the strong, 

 left in very great consternation their honey all 

 to themselves. — Hugh Miller. 



A Normal Colony. 



In the latter part of spring or the early part 

 of summer, a complete community of bees com- 

 prises — first, one queen, the mother of the hive, 

 a perfectly developed female; secondly, from 

 six hundred to eight hundred drones or males; 

 and, thirdly, from fifteen thousand to twenty 

 thousand toorJcers, to whom, though they are 

 occasionally known to lay fruitful drone eggs, 

 we may give the appellation of neuters. 



The office of the queen bee is to lay all the 

 eggs that are hatched in the hive. She is more- 

 over the constitutional head of the colony, for, 

 although she does nothing (so far as we know) 

 but add to its numbers, yet should she be acci - 

 dentally or designedly removed, anarchy at 

 once reigns in the hive. And if at such a junc- 

 ture there be not one of the royal family on the 

 way from larvahood, the constitutional bees 

 at once proceed, by a wonderful instinct, and a 

 remarkable artificial contrivance, to manufac- 

 ture a fresh head for the State. 



Of the drones little is known, for they rarely 

 leave the hive, except about noon on warm 

 days; and the sole purpose for which such num- 

 bers are produced would appear to be sufficient 

 to ensure a consort for the queen when she 

 leaves the hive on her wedding tour. 



Though there has been so little opportunity 

 of investigating their habits, we must not be 

 so uncharitable as to suppose that their life is 

 one of complete apathy, or that these beaux 

 amuse themselves by parading the Broadways 

 of the hive, and fiirting with the worker-ladies. 

 Whatever may be their duties, their services 

 are lightly appreciated l>y the rest of the com- 

 munity; for although they are allowed to re- 

 main unmolested in the hive during the sum- 

 mer mouths, whilst food is plentiful, and a 

 certain number accompany each swarm as it 



