BEE-KEEPER S MANUAL. S9 



death from an unfeeling subject, now rises in her ma- 

 jesty, and with eager and deadly aim, rushes to the com- 

 tiat — the struggle is short, one of the two soon lies in 

 the last pangs of death ! 



To return to our little family, that met so untimely an 

 end — the dead queen changed the aspect of the case 

 materially, and I was forced to conclude, that instead of 

 the drone-brood being the production of fertile workers, 

 it must have been the work of a queen ; and here comes 

 up the question of retarded impregnation. 



The reader will recollect, that I have stated, that 

 Huber experimented on retarded impregnation, and 

 that he states, that when a queen is retarded beyond 

 the twenty-first day of her age, in her impregnation, 

 she lays only drone-eggs thereafter, during her whole 

 life! 



In the foregoing case, I examined the premises thor- 

 oughly, to see what ground I had for taking this latter 

 assumption of Huber, as being applicable to the case be- 

 fore me, and I found much to strengthen me in the be-, 

 lief, and in fact to render it almost certain, that it was 

 an instance of retarded impregnation, beyond a reason- 

 able doubt. In the first place, I found some six or eight 

 royal cells in this hive, that had been constructed the 

 season previous ; and since a swarm never constructs 

 any royal cells the first season) unless it be in very rare 

 instances of large early swarms, that throw off a swarm 

 the same season, and this swarm not being an early 

 one, and to my certain knowledge, not being in a con- 

 dition to throw off a swarm at any time during the sea- 



