THE AGE OF QUEEN BEES. 3 



the age of his queens, hut tlus point will be noticed again 

 in another place. 



Queens are fourteen days in being hatched j that is, 

 perfect queens are produced on the fourteenth day after 

 eggs have been put into royal cells. The length of their 

 daj's is not, to a thoughtful bee-keeper, so great a marvel 

 as the shortness of time in v?hich they are in their cradle- 

 cells. Only fourteen days for the process of developing 

 smaU eggs into princesses of the blood 1 Yes, they are 

 perfect in fourteen days. How long is a worker in the 

 cell ? Twenty-one days. And a drone 1 Twenty - four 

 days. It is herein seen that queens are hatched in less 

 time, by one half, than drones. The mystery of this is 

 beyond our depth, but the fact indicates the value of the 

 presence of the queens in their hives. When a queen 

 is accidentally kOled, or dies unexpectedly, or is taken 

 from a hive, as in artificial swarming, the bees have the 

 power to make another. They take an egg meant for a 

 worker from a common cell, where, if unmolested and 

 undisturbed, it would be developed into a worker in 

 twenty-one days, and place it in a royal cell, and there 

 convert it into a queen in fourteen days. In the royal 

 cell the egg is developed into a different bee — different 

 in size and colour, perfect every way, and perfect in. 

 seven days less time than it otherwise would have been 

 if left in a common worker-ceU. This is an exceedingly 

 interesting point in bee-history, and a wise provision of 

 nature. It is a fact established beyond dispute, that 

 bees have the power of rearing queens from common eggs. 

 How do they accomplish this work, and by what means 1 

 The power seems to be in a substance termed "royal 

 jelly," which has a milky, gelatinous appearance. When- 

 ever an egg is set in a royal cell, the bees place around it 

 this milky-like substance, in which a little worm or grub 



