lo THE APIARY. 



very much like an acorn cup inverted. The chosen 

 embryo is then fed hberally with a peculiar description 

 of nurture, called by naturalists "royal jelly" — a pun- 

 gent food, prepared by the working bees exclusively for 

 those of the larvae that are destined to become candidates 

 for the honour of royalty. Should a queen be forcibly 

 separated from her subjects, she resents the interference, 

 refuses food, pines, and dies. 



The whole natural history of the queen-bee is in itself 

 a subject that will well repay for continuous study. Those 

 who desire to follow it, we would refer to the complete 

 works of HuBER — the greatest of apiarians, — Swammer- 

 DAM, Bevan, Langstroth, &c. The observations upon 

 the queen-bee needful to verify the above-mentioned 

 facts can only be made in hives constructed for the pur- 

 pose, of which the " Unicomb Observatory Hive " is the 

 best. In ordinary hives the queen is scarcely ever to be 

 seen ; where there are several rows of comb, she invari- 

 ably keeps between them, both for warmth and to be 

 more secure from danger. The writer has frequently 

 observed in stocks which have unfortunately died, that 

 the queen was one of the last to expire; and she is 

 always more difficult to gain possession of than other 

 bees, being by instinct taught that she is indispensable to 

 the welfare of her subjects. 



The queen enjoys a far longer life than any of her 

 subjects, her age 'generally extending to four, or even 

 five years. The drones, which are mostly hatched in the 



