LOSS OF THE QUEEN, 213 



C.H AFTER XI. 



LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 



That the Queen-Bee is often lost, and that her colony- 

 will be ruined unless su6h a calamityis seasonably remedied, 

 ought to be familiar facts to every bee-keeper. 



Queens sometimes die of disease or old age, when there 

 is no brood to supply their loss. Few, however, perish 

 under such circumstances ; for either the bees build royal 

 cells, aware of their approachiDg end, or they die so sud- 

 denly as to leave young brood behind them. Queens are 

 not only much longer lived (p. 58) than the workers, but 

 are usually the last to perish in any fatal casualty. As 

 many die of old age, if their death did not ordinaiily 

 occur under favorable circumstances, it would cause, 

 yearly, the loss of a very large number of colonies. As 

 they seldom die when their strength is not severely taxed 

 in breeding, drones are usually on hand to impregnate 

 their successors.* 



Toung queens are sometimes born with wings so imper- 

 fect that they cannot fly (p. 39) ; and they are often so 

 injured in their contests with each other, or by the rude 

 treatment they receive when driven from the royal cells 

 (p. 121), that they cannot leave the hive for impregnation. 



* In preparing my stocks for Winter, I found— on the 21st of October, 1856 — 

 two which had sealed queens. As the drones were not killed, In some of the hives, 

 nntil after the 1st of November, these queens might have been impregnated^ if the 

 ■weather had not become very cold. When examined on the 21st day of February, 

 these stocks had each a few sealed drones and larviE, while weaker stocks had 

 much brood. The following is an extract from Prof. Leidy's description of these 

 queens: — "Their ovaries were filled with eggs, from a mere point to such as meas- 

 ured four-fifths of a line long, and one-eighth of a line broad. ' Their spermathecaa 

 were filled with mucoid, granular matter, and epithelial cells, a/tid did ttot contain 



