NATURAL niSTOKY OF THE HONEY BEE. 7 



before we remove the queen. We should then examine this 

 comb, and it Avill probably be found to contain a number of 

 eggs : this being the case, all we have to do is to cut holes in 

 the coinb about one inch square amongst the patches of eggs. 

 The bees will then choose the fggs from which they intend to 

 rear cjueens; and, removing the walls of the adjacent cells, will 

 build queen cells (fig. 36) around the selected eggs. Seven 

 days after the queen was taken away, we must examine the 

 hive, and cut out all queen cells which have been formed 

 in any of the combs, except in the one containing the eggs 

 from which we decided that the bees should rear the queen. 



When the larvje hatch out of these eggs, the bees feed 

 them liberally with the " royal jelly," as previously mentioned, 

 for five days, after which they seal over the cells. Eight days 

 later — i.e., sixteen days after the egg was laid — the queen 

 hatches out. And here, indeed, is a wonderful provision of 

 nature, that the queen — the most important bee in the whole 

 hive — should come to maturity in a considerably shorter time 

 than either the workers or drones. 



The queen which hatches out first will fight with the next 

 one which hatches ; and the former, being older and stronger, 

 will kill the latter. Some say that the woi'kers de^ti-oy all the 

 superfluous cpieens after the first is hatched out ; while others 

 alfirm that the queens themselves fight until all are killed but 

 one. 



When the queen is about six days old, she will leave the 

 hive to take her marriage trip, queens always mating on the 

 wing. This is another provision of nature to prevent in-and in 

 breeding ; for if she mated in the hive, she must always 

 mate with one of her own brother-drones ; and we know that 

 where in-and-in breeding is carried on for any considerable 

 length of time the breed must surely deteriorate, until at last 

 it dies out altogether. 



Should the queen fail to meet an admirer on the first day, 

 she will fly on the succeeding days again and again until 

 she does. Bevan says that if not mated till between the 

 fifteenth and twenty- first day, she will be largely a drone- 

 breeder : this, however, is erroneous ; as, in the cold, wet 

 summer of 1888, 1 had a second swarm come off on July 17th, 

 and I saw the queen returning from her marital excursion 

 on August 1st : thus she must have been at least fifteen days 

 old, and probably more, as queens seldom go off with a. swarm 



