PHYSIOLOGY. 71 



When provision has been made, in the manner described, 

 for a new race of queens, the old mother always departs 

 with the first swarm, before her successors have arrived at 

 maturity,* 



Artificial Eearing of QacENS. 



The distress of the bees when they lose their queen, has 

 already been described. If they have the means of sup- 

 plying her loss, they soon calm down, and commence forth- 

 with, the necessary steps for rearing another. The process 

 of rearing queens artificially, to meet some special emer- 

 gency, is even more wonderful than the natural one, which 

 has already been describe'd. Its success depends on the 

 bees having worker-eggs or worms not more than three 

 days old ; (if older, the larva has been too far developed as 

 a worker to admit of any change :) the bees nibble away 

 the partitions of two cells adjoining a third, so as to make 

 one large cell out of the three. They destroy the eggs or 

 worms in two of these cells, while they place before the 

 occupant of the third, the usual food of the young queens, 

 and build out its cell, so as to give it ample space for devel- 

 opment. They do not confine themselves to the attempt to 

 rear a single queen, but to guard against failure, start a con- 

 siderable number, although the work on all except a few, 

 is usually soon discontinued. 



afflux of light and the use of microscopes, to continue any longer 

 upon such small objects, though as discernible in the afternoon, as 

 they had been in the forenoon." 



" Our author, the better to accomplish his vast, unlimited views, often 

 wished for a year of perpetual heat and light to perfect his inquiries, 

 with a polar night to reap all the advantages of them by proper draw- 

 ings and descriptions." 



* The formation of swarms will be particularly described in another 

 chapter. 



