and its Economic Management. 311 
The Queen-Mother of a colony of bees should be the 
life and soul of the hive. A reliable, highly prolific 
queen, reared from a_ strain possessing the most 
desirable characteristics in relation to honey gather- 
ing; as also white and otherwise perfect sealing ; 
eager and rapid comb-building; as well as that in- 
valuable trait—longevity—ensures the highest possible 
results where the energies of the workers are intelli- 
gently directed. 
CHAPTER XX. 
QUEEN REARING 
BY NATURAL, IMPROVISED AND SCIENTIFIC 
MEANS. 
T is generally understood that when a colony is deprived 
} of its queen the bees are soon aware of the loss, and 
forthwith special cells are constructed upon larve that 
may be from one to three or four days old, but very seldom 
are eggs selected in such a case of emergency. In due time 
a queen is hatched from one of such cells, and though she 
may have enjoyed the usual quantity of royal jelly, it 
frequently happens that the first to emerge from her cradle 
is one that is not well developed, as the older larve would 
naturally come first to maturity. Thus those which had 
been selected from the egg, or one or two days after 
hatching therefrom, and would have received only the royal 
food from the first day of their existence, and consequently 
are destined to be perfect in formation, are frequently 
sacrificed to a dwarfed and ill-formed queen. 
