OP MANAGING BEES. 21 



colony, unaccompanied by a queen, could not obtain. They 

 have the larva, or grub, of the common worker, and the 

 power to convert it into a queen. They soon discover their 

 loss, and immediately set themselves to work to fill the 

 vacancy, by constructing several royal cells, into which they 

 remove the young grubs which would have become workers, 

 and, by feeding them on "royal jelly," in a few days they 

 have a queen. The eggs are commonly laid in litters, about 

 three times a week, during the breeding season ; and the 

 bees, to be more sure of succeeding in their experiments, 

 divide theruselves into squadrons, and imdertake to make 

 more than one, by taking them from different litters, and also 

 avoid the confusion of having a number of queens hatch 

 at the same time. This fact accounts for hearing more than 

 one queen at the same time. Two queens cannot exist 

 together long in the same hive. Nature has implanted an 

 implacable hatred betwixt them ; and as soon as the notes 

 of the first-hatched queen are heard, they are answered by 

 notes of defiance by the nymph-queen younger, who is yet 

 in her cell, and has not seen the light ; and, if not prevented 

 by the workers, her elder sister tears her from her cell, and 

 immolates her to her love of undisputed sway. But if the 

 bees should be sufiiciently numerous to protect their queen 

 of their own making, for whom, as the work of their ovm 

 hands, they seem to have a blind attachment, the elder 

 queen collects her followers, sallies forth, and seeks a new 

 habitation. This is the cause of second and third swarmings 

 which take place, and which frequently so weaken the hive 

 as to cause many of the evils to which bees are subjected, for 

 which we think we have discovered the remedy. (See 

 Chapters X. and XII. See Appendix also.) 



If the second swarm does not come out before the seven- 

 teenth day after first swarming, there is reason to believe 



