LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 285 



our manufactures, and under whose shrewd tuition we are 

 fast beginning to believe that cheapness in the first cost of an 

 article, is the main point to which our attention should bo 

 directed ! 



It is unquestionably wise to save all that we can in the cost 

 of construction, by the greatest economy in the use of ma- 

 terials ; we should compel every minute to yield the greatest 

 possible result, by the employment of the most skillful work- 

 men and ingenious machinery ; but, in the name of commoD 

 sense, do let us learn that slighting an article, so as to get 

 up a mere sham, having all the appearance of reality, with 

 none of its substance, is the shabbiest kind of pretended 

 economy ; to say nothing of the tendency of such a penny- 

 wise system, to encourage in all the pursuits of life, the 

 narrow and selfish policy of doing nothing thoroughly, 

 but everything with reference to mere outside show, or the 

 urgent necessities of the present moment. 



We have yet to describe, under what circumstances, by 

 far the larger portion of queenless hives meet with so great a 

 calamity. After the first swarm has left with the old mother, 

 both the parent stock and all subsequent swarms, will each 

 have a young queen, which must always leave the hive, to 

 be impregnated. It sometimes happens that the wings of 

 the young female are, from her birth, so imperfect that she 

 either refuses to sally out, or is unable to return to her hive, 

 if she ventures abroad. In either case, the old stock, if left 

 to its own resources, must perish. Queens, in their con- 

 tests with each other, are sometimes so crippled as to unfit 

 them for flight, while occasionally they are disabled by the 

 rude treatment of the bees, who insist on driving them away 

 from the royal cells. 



But the great majority of queens which are lost, perish 

 when they leave the hive in search of the drones. Their 



