THE QUEEN. 53 



ragged and worn, could not be the mother of such a quan- 

 tity of brood. We continued our search and found another 

 queen, daughter of the first, large and plump. Had we 

 introduced a strange queen into this hive, after having de- 

 stroyed the old one, thinking that we had made the colony 

 queenless, she would have been killed. 



119. We could relate a number of such instances. The 

 most interesting case was the simultaneous laying of two 

 queens of different breeds in the same hive, one black, the 

 other Italian. The colony had. two queens, when we intro- 

 duced our Italian queen. We found the younger one and 

 killed her, and the old one was so little considered by her 

 bees, that they accepted our imported queen and allowed both 

 to remain together. To our astonishment there were some 

 black bees hatching among the pure Italians, and it was not 

 till we accidentally discovered the old black queen that we 

 understood the matter. 



There are more such eases than most bee-keepers would 

 imagine, and when these happen to buyers of improved races 

 of bees, if they are not very close observers, they are apt to 

 accuse venders of having cheated them. Such instances make 

 the business of queen selling quite disagreeable. 



120. Impregnation.— The fecundation of the queen bee 

 has occupied the mmds of Apiarists and savants for ages. 

 A number of theories were advanced. If a number of drones 

 are confined in a small box, they give forth a strong odor: 

 Swammerdam supposed that the queen was impregnated by 

 this scent {aura seminalis) of the drones. Reaumur, a re- 

 nowned entomologist, in 1744, thought that the mating of 

 the queen was effected inside of the hive. Others advanced 

 that the eggs were impregnated by the drones in the cells. 



After making a number of experiments to verify these 

 theories, and finding all false, Huber finally ascertained that, 

 like many other insects, the queen was fecundated in the 

 open air and on the wing; and that the influence of this 

 connection lasts for several years, and probably for life. 



121. rive days or more after her birth, the virgin queen 



