13 



search out new sources of honey and a new home when this 

 becomes necessary for the colony to cast a new swarm — nature's 

 way of increasing. 



The queen is the mother bee and her sole function is to lay 

 eggs. After hatching, she will take several short flights goiiig 

 a little farther from the hive as she gains strength, the weather 

 having much to do with this, when she takes what is called her 

 bridal flight, and, if successful, meets the drone or male bee 

 and mates while on the wing. By this act she becomes fertile 

 for life, at least continuing to lay eggs for several seasons which 

 produce workers, queens and drones without again mating. 

 Some investigators claim that in some rare instances the queen 

 mates more than once. A young queen rarely attains her best 

 in the first season but does in her second and fails quite rapidly_ 

 after this. Some undoubtedly live until the fourth season and 

 may have done igood work in the third. 



Many progressive bee-keepers practice superceding all queen 

 bees at the close of the second season, putting in their place 

 young mated queens of selected stock, unless it be some queen 

 whose record and ancestry warrants giving them another sear, 

 son of life. The young queen before mating is called a virgin 

 queen, and usually begins laying in two or three days after a 

 successful mating flight. When a queen bee begins to fail, if 

 allowed to live, she may lay egigs which produce only drones- 

 and is known as a drone laying queen. The colony will then, 

 soon dwindle out and be lost unless requeened at once or united' 

 with a colony having a laying fertile queen. In a queenless 

 colony, a worker sometimes develops the ability to lay eggs.' 

 Such a colony is worthless until united with one having a queen." 

 If the virgin queen of one race mates with a drone of another; 

 her progeny will be queens and workers half-breed of each 

 race, — sometimes improperly called hybrids. The drones are 

 not apparently effected by the mating and are pure blood of 

 the race of the mother. The drone is the male bee and so far 

 as we know, his sole function in life is to meet and fertihze the 

 young queens. In this respect we see a wonderful provision, 

 of nature. Thousands of drones are in the air at the time the 

 virgin queen takes her bridal flight. Her winig powers are 

 such that only the swiftest and strongest can overtake her- 



