RAISING AND INTRODUCTION OF QUEENS. 32 1 
to the individual, but also to the species, by 
decreasing the period of necessary queenlessness. 
But in some matters the individual is favoured to 
the injury of the community at large ; e.o.^ the 
jealousy of young queens, leading them to fight, and, 
if possible, kill their sisters, gives the greater chance 
to the most jealous, or the best fighter; and this 
has constantly intensified the instinct of queen-rivalry 
and hatred, until it has resulted in the impossibility 
of having more queens than one in a hive — a fact 
favourable to that queen, since she alone can leave 
progeny ; but how great a disadvantage to the 
species ! If this single queen be lost in her mating- 
tour, her colony is doomed to extinction, and the 
same fate awaits it should she die while no eggs 
exist in her hive, or even in the presence of these, 
if no drones are found to fecundate her successor. 
It is not, then, in relation to the swarming impulse 
alone that art seems capable of improving upon 
natural processes ; and this is as it should be, for 
man has thus left open to him a delightful field for 
the exercise and encouragement of his intelligence. 
But, it will be asked, of what certain advantage is 
selecting the queen if the drone is beyond our con- 
trol ? Much every way, but chiefly that in selecting 
the queen of the present, we select the drone of the 
future; because the queen is herself by herself the 
drone-parent, and as she is, so he will be. Opinions 
have been expressed as to the special influence the 
drone exerts on the worker progeny, but these are so 
contradictory that they are valueless. Where a cross- 
mating occurs, the workers will present every variety 
VoL. II. Y 
