136 



QUEEKS. 



QUEEN NUKbERr. 



give are not sufficient to sustain the system, let it fall ; 1 

 want it upheld by merits of its own, or not at all. 



" How is it with natural swarms ? Ten or fifteen cells 

 are often made where a swarm has issued. The first are 



made under the impulse of 

 the swarming fever. If the 

 swarm issues before any are 

 sealed over, very many will 

 be started at once. Some 

 of them, however, after the 

 swarm has left, receive much 

 less attention than the first 

 ones did. If want of atten- 

 tion makes an inferior queen in case of artificial rearing, 

 can any one say why the same causes will not produce the 

 same results here ? We are not likely to ascertain for :t 

 certainty, as all except two or three of the first are de- 

 stroyed. But when we come to imitate natural swarming, 

 in a sense, by removing a queen from a full stock, and 

 claim better queens in consequence, we can test it some- 

 what. We find m the attempts to replace the mother, a 

 still greater diversity in the time of starting cells. It is 

 rei^orted that some queens will hatch in nine days, some 

 in ten, others sixteen and eighteen, and at all intermediate 

 times. Those hatching under ten days are claimed to 

 be deficient in development, and sliort-lived. I never had 

 any nine-day queens, and cannot say. Those tliat are 

 slow to mature are quite apt to be deficient. I do not 

 say that some such do not make beautiful queens, but the 

 average is no better than cen-day queens. 



" When first deprived of the mother, the bees make 

 cells over larvse, without seeming to care much for a con- 

 venient place ; after the first impulse is over, they find a 

 good place occasionally, and commence other cells, but 

 having a large number already, they work as if they cared 

 little for these last. They seem to nurse such for want of 



