FOREIGN BEES. 37 



CHAPTER X. 



As a rule the quepn, in a stock from which a swarm has 

 issued, hatches out all right, and in due time, generally 

 about a fortnight, she becpmes a mother, and pursues the 

 even tenor of her way to the end of her four or five years 

 of life ; but now and again the dull routine is broken by 

 calamity. Sometimes there may be only one queen cell in 

 the hive, and it fails to hatch. Sometimes it hatches, the 

 queen sets out on her wedding flight, and gets killed and 

 eaten by a bird, or she may enter the wrong hive, and get 

 stung to death. In any one of these cases, the stock be- 

 comes queenless, and, unless there are eggs or larvse not 

 more than three days old in the hive, from which to 

 raise another queen, the stock will certainly die out if 

 steps are not taken to prevent it. A comb on which 

 there are queen cells may be taken from another hive, 

 and given to them. But, as the introduction of new blood 

 is as advantageous with bees as it is with the higher aniitials, 

 the bee-keeper will do well to order a queen from some 

 hive-dealer living at a distance, and introduce her to the 

 queenless stock. The price of a queen varies with the 

 season, being highest in April, and lowest in October. 

 Common black queens are worth about two shillings each 

 ■during the whole season ; Ligurian and Carniolan queens, 

 about seven or eight shillings in May ; and Cyprian and 

 Holy Land queens, about fifteen shillings in April or May. 

 The stock to which a foreign queen is introduced will, at 

 the end of two or three months, be of the same race as the 

 queen, as all the old bees will have died out by that time, 

 and the progeny of the new queen will have taken their 

 places. The Ligurian bees come from Italy, and are very 

 gentle while their hive is under examination, are hardy and 

 prolific, but are very poor honey-gatherers. Camiolans come 

 from Hungary, and are very gentle, prolific, and fairly good 

 at gathering honey. Both Holy Land and Cyprian bees are 

 very handsome to look at, hardy, prolific, arid industrious, 

 but so vicious and spiteful that very few bee-keepers care to 

 keep them. Apart, however, from the merits pf iny of the 

 races or varieties when pure, the bee-keeper will do well to 



