LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 223 



minish the labor and perplexity of the bee-keeper. I have 

 devised a way of doing this, so as to designate the age of 

 the queens : With a pair of scissors, let the wings, on 

 one side, of a young queen be carefully cut off: when the 

 hives are examined next year, let one of her two remain- 

 ing wings be removed, and the last one the third year. 



The fertility of queens usually decreases after the second 

 year, and before they die of old age the contents of their 

 spermathecas sometimes become exhausted, and they lay 

 only drone-eggs.* Unless, therefore, queens are unusually 

 fertile, it will be safer to remove them after they have 

 entered on their third year.f 



A young queen, or a sealed royal cell, should be given 

 to a colony, the second day after the old one is removed 

 for if they raise a queen from the egg, she may find nearly 

 all the cells filled with honey or bee-bread, and the popu- 

 lation greatly reduced. 



Early in October when some brood is usually found in 

 every healthy stock, and when all the colonies should be 

 examined, with reference to the coming Winter if any 

 are found to be queenless, they should be united to other 

 stocks. If, however, the old queens were seasonably re- 

 moved, and the stocks that raised young ones were 

 properly attended to, few queenless colonies will be found in 



which enamel and perfume two-thirds of the sheep-walks. This priest cautiously 

 seizes the queens in a small crape fly-catch, and then clips off their wings. He 

 assured me that he never lost a swarm from the day of this discovery to the day 

 he saw me, which was, I think, five years after." p. 77. 



* Posel says, that a queen that has suffered from hunger for 24 hours never re- 

 covers her wonted fertility. I shall show, in another place, that after recovering 

 from severe cold, queens cease to lay worker-eggs. 



t " Queens differ much as to the degree of their fertility. Those are best which 

 deposit their eggs with uniform regularity, leaving no cells unsnpplied as the 

 brood hatches at the same time on the same range of comb, which can be again 

 supplied : the queen thus losing no time in searching for empty cells." Dzierzon. 

 In bee-life, as well as in human affairs, 'those who are systematic, ordinarily accom- 

 plish the most. 



