12 THE BOOK OF BEE-KEEPING. 



be not superseded by the bees, or man — perish. When a virgin 

 queen issues forth from her cell, very little notice is taken of her 

 by the workers; she has just to shift for herself At the end of 

 three days, weather being propitious, she flies forth from the 

 hive, many writers say, to meet the drone; but this is very 

 rarely the case. Her first flight is but a prospecting one ; 

 in fact, she will issue from the hive two or three times in 

 quick succession on the same day, and will do this in some 

 instances for several days before fertilisation by the drone takes 

 place. 



We have just now observed two instances in our own apiary 

 where the queens have been flying for five days. In one case, 

 we saw her issue and return four times during one afternoon, 

 yet were only watching for an hour ; perhaps she had made 

 more flights than even this number. Shortly after fertilisation 

 takes place — the time varying considerably with different queens — 

 she commences to lay eggs ; these are fastened to the bottom 

 of the cell, at one end, by a glutinous substance, with which the 

 egg is coated when voided. Often the first few eggs laid by 

 the queen produce only drones, and, in exceptional instances, 

 quite a large number of such eggs are laid ; but having 

 settled fairly to her duties, she will lay in the height of the 

 season from 2000 to 3000 eggs per day. It has become quite 

 an accepted fact among the old-fashioned bee-keepers, that the 

 queen leads the swarm ; this is entirely wrong. She may leave 

 the hive at any time during the issue of a swarm, oftentimes 

 one of the last, in some cases refusing to leave at all ; the 

 bees will then return to the hive : or maybe she leaves with 

 the swarm, and returns again to the hive; in this case the bees 

 return. Why is this ? Not because she rules them, but, being 

 the life of the stock, they cannot commence founding a new colony 

 without her. If they had eggs or larvae from which to rear 

 another queen, very little notice of her leaving the hive would 

 be taken. Remove a queen from a swarm, and place them in 

 a hive furnished with eggs and young larvae, the major portion 

 w,ill stop; but place them in an empty hive without the queen, 

 and they will return to the parent stock. Hence, a knowledge 

 that without a mother they perish causes them to follow a 

 queen, but only when they have no means of rearing another. 

 In rearing queens in "nuclei" (see "Queen-rearing), one must 

 keep some uncapped brood in them; the inhabitants will not 

 then leave with the queen when she takes her wedding flight ; 

 but if none or only capped brood is there, they, having no 

 means of rearing a mother, will very likely issue with her. She 

 will follow them, they will follow her, and thus both will be 

 lost to you. Equally so is it the queen's desire not to be 

 separated from a hive. Suppose, for instance, that in removing 

 a queen from a hive you let her slip from your fingers ; she 

 takes flight, you think she is gone, and shut up the hive. Do 



