40 miner's AMERICAN 



son, the question arises, why were these royal cells con- 

 structed ? 



The probable solution to this query is, that sometime 

 in August or September, the queen belonging to this 

 hive, from some cause, was lost, and the workers avail- 

 ing themselves of their power to replace her, or create 

 another in her stead, constructed the royal cells as above, 

 and reared a queen. This queen coming into existence, 

 at a period when very few drones exist, if any at all, 

 must, from that cause, have found great difficulty in 

 encountering them on the wing, and hence, a retarded 

 impregnation is almost certain to result to every queen, 

 under such circumstances. In large apiaries, say of fif- 

 teen or twenty hives, there is generally some one or two 

 hives that allow a portion of the drones to survive much 

 later than usual, and where such drones do e;sist, a 

 young queen may, after many flights, succeed in her 

 amours. 



DIFFICULTY OF EFFECTING THE IMPREGNATION OF aUEENS 

 AT PARTICULAR SEASONS. 



Huber states, that on the occasion of a young queen 

 coming forth at a season of the year, after the usual 

 massacre of drones, he witnessed her ineffectual flights 

 in search of them, for many days ; at last she returned 

 bearing evidence of success. This accords with my own 

 experience in similar cases, and I must, therefore, come 

 to the conclusion, that mine was a case of retarded im- 

 pregnation of the queen, since every fact pertaining to 

 the case, goes strongly to prove it. We account for the 



