American 



Journal. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Vol. II. 



JANXJA-RY, iser. 



No. 7. 



Bee-C\iltnre in Cottage Hives. 



No. 7. 



QUEENLESSNESS. 



Qucenlessness consists iu the want ofa queen 

 bee in a colony. It proves fatal to the colony 

 ouly when it occurs at a season when a young 

 queen cannot be reared or fertilized, or when 

 eggs or brood suitable for queen-raising are 

 not to be found in the hive. The total barren- 

 ness of a queen, or her inability to lay any 

 other than drone eggs, is, in its results, pre- 

 cisely similar to queenlessness; and cure involves 

 the removal of such a queen, and the substitu- 

 tion of one normally fertile. 



The two latter are cases of rare occurrence, 

 as is likewise that where a queen, from 

 disease or super-annuation, ceases to produce 

 eggs. The most common case is thut wheie 

 the queen is missing or lost. Her death or 

 destruction may be the result of various causes 

 She may have died from disease or super-annu- 

 ation; she may have been accidentally killed 

 while the combs were being examined in the 

 spring or fall; or she may have been inadvert- 

 antly removed when a super or a section Avas 

 taken away without due examination of its con- 

 tents. These, originating in the carelessness of 

 the bee-keeper, are avoidable cases. If it 

 happen that at the time of the loss or removal 

 of tlie queen there are no eggs or no suitable 

 worker brood in the hive, from which a young 

 queen could be reared; or if it occur at a season 

 when no drones exist, or when the weather 

 does not permit the bees to fly, the young 

 queen could not be fertilized, and the 

 colony must ultimately perisli. Sometimes, 

 too, the embryo queen perishes in her cell 

 before attaining maturity, or the workers open 

 the cell prematurely, and destroy her. We 

 refer now chiefly to cases where the effort is to 

 replace a lost queen at other periods than the 

 swarming aeasou, for when a hive swarms 

 naturally, a number of queen cellshave usually 

 been started and are more or less advanced, so 

 that in such cases the casualties adverted to 

 rarely present themselves, though even then 

 other dangers may impend. But nearly all of 



thesealso may be averted by simply removing 

 the hive which has swarmed to a new stand, 

 and setting the swarm in its stead. A first 

 swarm rarely becomes queenless, even in the 

 second year; and a parent hive thus transposed 

 with the prime swarm has never become so in 

 our apiary. 



On the other hand, queenlessness almost in- 

 variably ensues in a hive greatly reduced by 

 reiterated swarming. During the issuing of 

 successive SAvarms, and even during the con- 

 fusion and tumult attending abortive attempts 

 at swarming, it frequently happens that several 

 young queens emerge from their cells, and the 

 whole of them accompany the last swarm, 

 leaving the parent hive queenless and without 

 the means of supplying the want. But the 

 most common occurrence when a number of 

 young queens have simultaneously left their 

 cells, and circumstances then jirevent swarm- 

 ing, is that each young queen having its own 

 adherents, all will be killed or expelled by the ex- 

 cited workers pertaining to the contending 

 factions. Occasionally, too, several queens 

 may encounter each other during the reign of 

 confusion, and if both be not killed in the con- 

 flict, the survivor may be so seriously injured 

 as to be unable to fly, and be thus disqualified 

 from becoming a normally fertile queen. For 

 every young queen — and this is the great danger 

 to which every colony containing anewly -reared 

 qj.ieen is exposed — must make at least one, and 

 usually several, excursions to meet the drones 

 on the wing, and may then perish from various 

 causes." Even if she return from a successful 

 excursion, she may, in her haste, enter a wrong 

 hive and be slain, or she may even be destroyed 

 by the bees of her own hive, which happens 

 much more frequently than is usually thought. 

 But when the parent stock and swarm are 

 transposed immediately after swarming, there 

 is no reason to apprehend the loss of the queen. 

 We have never known it to occur in such ease. 

 The reason probably is that all the tumult and 

 confusion attending afterswarming are pre- 

 vented, as the supernumerary queens are at 

 once destroyed after transposition, and the 

 selected young queen no longer incurs any 

 risk i'rdm internal foes. 



