QUEEN REARING. 199 



and the probability is that the difficulty of regulating 

 the warmth accurately, makes the results so uncertain 

 and disappointing as not to tend to the adoption of 

 the method among us. Like the " incubators " for 

 the artificial hatching of poultry, so many circum- 

 stances combine to mar hopes cherished in the use of 

 them, that it is altogether more satisfactory to rely 

 on natural processes for the production of the young 

 of both fowls and bees. 



In all the processes of queen rearing described, we 

 cannot but be struck with the inextinguishable love 

 shown to the undeveloped young, and the passionate 

 yearning for a mother-bee displayed by the workers. 

 It matters not whether the brood presented to them 

 be taken from their own stock or from another 

 community ; they will at once cluster upon the cells 

 containing larvae, and devotedly tend them till they 

 come forth as perfect insects. The emerging progeny 

 may even belong to another variety, Ligurian, 

 Cyprian, or Carniolan ; still the same complete de- 

 votion will be displayed. Nor is the willingness of 

 a colony to receive an introduced queen affected by 

 the fact of her belonging to a different race from 

 the subjects to whom she is given. Yet, we do 

 observe strange differences in the readiness with 

 which a stranger sovereign is acknowledged. In 

 some instances there is no hostility manifested to an 

 uncaged queen, who is allowed to run down among 

 the combs of a community which is without a 

 mother. This is especially the case with a stock 

 just mourning its discovered loss. At other times, 

 even with careful introduction, and caging for from 

 twenty-four to forty-eight hours, so unamiable a 



