HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 13 



DOES THE QUEEN GOVERN THE COLONY? 



My experience upon this point is, that she does 

 not, or if she does exercise any controlling power, it 

 is to a very limited extent indeed ; but on the con- 

 trary, I firmly believe her to be a creature of the col- 

 ony, or worker bees, and subject to their power and 

 control, from the time the egg is deposited from 

 which she is reared, up to the perfect queen, and 

 from that time to the day of her death. It is gen- 

 erally conceded that the worker bees possess the pow- 

 er to rear a queen from any egg deposited in a worker 

 cell, and it is generally supposed that the change is 

 caused by the quantity and quality of food given them 

 whilst in the larva state, producing a fully developed 

 insect instead of one but partially developed, as in 

 the case of the common workers, and in this opin- 

 ion I fully concur. Now if food can be varied to 

 produce such striking results as this, may it not pro- 

 duce very important results in another direction ? (as 

 I will have occasion to refer to hereafter.) Thus we 

 find the common bees can rear a queen at pleasure, 

 when they have eggs. Now suppose the old queen 

 is removed from a colony when in possession of eggs, 

 what is the result ? Do they scatter off, hither and 

 thither, having lost their governor or sovereign ; or 

 do they become lazy, indolent or reckless, not caring 

 now to protect their stores, as would most unques- 

 tionably be the case were they dependent upon the 

 queen to direct them in their duty, allotting to each 

 their task ? Nay, every observing apiarian can tes- 

 tify to the reverse of all this. 



