THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



163 



[From the (Londou) Journal of Horticulture.] 



The Egyptian Bee. 

 Part VI. 



HOW I PROrA-GATED IT, TESTED IT, AJSD FINALLY 

 GOT RID OF IT. 



Without entering into particulars, ■which 

 may, ho%yevcr, be ascertained by referring to 

 No. XXVI. of "Bee-lieepinginUcvon," wiiich 

 appeared in No. 241 of " our Journal," I may 

 brieliy state, that during the latter end of Au- 

 gust and the first week of September, seven 

 more young Egyptian queens were hatched 

 out, whereof six were fecundated in due course, 

 whilst one fell a victim to a regicidal attack 

 made upon her by her worker sisters. It 

 is a remarkable fact that whatever might have 

 been the case with the first queen, the whole of 

 the last six were unquestionably fertilized by 

 small Italian drones bred in worker cells, the 

 last few full-sized drones that I possessed hav- 

 ing been destroyed about the middle of Sep- 

 tember. 



The remainder of the autumn was devoted 

 to strengthening the Egyptian element in my 

 apiary, which now consisted of the first stock, 

 with the original queen, and seven young colo- 

 nies, all the produce of the solitary queen 

 which, having been received so late as the SOth 

 of July, alone survived the massacre of her at- 

 tendants, and was placed at the head of a small 

 nucleus on her arrival. 



The spring of 18GG was, of course, looked 

 forward to with great interest, and found me 

 in the possession of eight fine Egyptian colonies, 

 which had passed the ordeal of an English 

 winter perfectly unscathed. In point of fact 

 the original Egyptian cjueen (owing, doubtless, 

 to the extra care and pains bestowed upon her) 

 was at the head of by far the strongest colony 

 in my apiary, whilst the seven otiiers would 

 compare advantageously with any seven of my 

 Italian stocks that could be selected, and I 

 looked forward with much delight to the accom- 

 plishment of the pleasing task of propagaiiug 

 what I at that time believed would turn out to 

 be a race of bees superior even to the Italians 

 in docility and beauty. But here occurred a 

 mischance which in its results gave me the 

 first hint as to the true character and disposition 

 of my African prvtigees. 



Whilst examining one of the young colonies 

 on the 20th of April, I noticed what appeared 

 something like a small regicidal cluster at the 

 bottom of one of the combs. Seeing the queen, 

 however, almost the next instant run across the 

 same comb at perfect liberty, I deemed myself 

 mistaken, closed the hive in all haste, and 

 thought no more of the matter. The result 

 proved that I had treated this occurrence too 

 lightly, for next morning the poor-deposed 

 sovereign lay dead in front of the hive. As, 

 however, she happened to be very fresh and 

 retained her beauty in a remarkable degi'ee, a 

 clever entomological friend succeeded in stufiing 

 and setting her up most admirably, and she now 

 figures in the British Museum as the only spe- 

 cimen in that vast collection of a queen-bee of 

 Ai)is fasciata. But this is by the way. 



Egyptian drones having by this time made 

 their appearance, I did not attach much im- 

 portance to the loss of what was at best but a 

 hybridized queen, and accordingly set to work 

 to exchange brood-combs with the original 

 stock, so that the whilom regicides might be 

 compelled to raise a pure queen. 



Bat this was no easy task; the little rascals 

 showed fight with all the fiery impetuosity of a 

 body of Prince Rupert's cavaliers, combined 

 with a stern determination and indomitable re- 

 solution which would have done credit to a 

 corps of Cromwell's redoubted Ironsides. 

 Quickly was 1 compelled to put on India-rubber 

 bee-gloves, (a piece of armor which I had long 

 disused,) and soon afterwards discovered that, 

 whilst wearing slippers, I labored under the 

 same disadvantage as Achilles, in being vulner- 

 able at the heel. Nor was this all. When the 

 exchange had been effected, the hive restored 

 to its normal state, and, as I thought, a truce 

 proclaimed, these indomitable little Amazons 

 would have none of it, but attacked and stung 

 all and sundry that ventured into the garden, 

 until I became convinced that it was in vain to 

 indulge further a hope for peace, and was ul- 

 timately compelled to banish them to a secluded 

 position a mile and a half distant, where they 

 remained until the evening of the 7th of May. 

 On examining them the next morning, I found 

 that two royal cells had arrived at perfection, 

 whilst all the rest were destroyed; and a stricter 

 scrutiny revealing the fact that the two recent 

 denizens of the naturally-opened ciueen-cells 

 had not yet met in mortal combat, but were 

 still surviving within the hive, its inhabitants 

 were forthwith divided into two colonies, with 

 a young queen at the head of each. The re- 

 markable display of spirit on the part of my 

 recent acquisition caused me to pause in the 

 attempt to propagate Apis fasciata, but it re- 

 quired much more than this to force me to the 

 course which I was afterwards compelled to 

 adopt. 



Any one who turns back to No. 241 of " our 

 Journal," to which I have before referred, will 

 see that the fifth Egyptian queen developed 

 some extraordinary phenomena, which I there 

 described as follows : 



" When she was about ten days old, I no- 

 ticed a single agg in a worker cell which ap- 

 peared to be the signal for the destruction of a 

 few full-sized drones which existed in the hive 

 at the time. More eggs were gradually deposi- 

 ted in the adjoining cells, and all receiving the 

 raised convex coverings appropriate to drones, 

 whilst the abdomen of the queen (a very small 

 one) remained undistendf^d, I doubted not that 

 she would turn out a eonlirmed drone-breeder. 

 When rather over twenty days old, I noticed, 

 much to my astonishment, a remarkable change 

 in her appearance, which suddenly assume ;Uhe 

 graceful degree of embonpoint proper to an im- 

 pregnated queen. This was accompanied by 

 an equally notable change in the manner of her 

 oviposition, which from being sparse and un- 

 equal became copious and regular. Soon after- 

 wards it also became evident that iier progeny 

 would not be entirely of the male sex, a few 

 cells of worker brood appearing here and there 



