RAISING AND INTRODUCTION OF QUEENS. 343 
the most easy and the most difficult subjects for 
re-queening experiments, for, in rare instances, when 
all the bees have become old, they not only utterly 
refuse to accept a queen, howsoever presented, or to 
raise queen-cells, but they, in a sort of dementia, will 
destroy the latter if they are given to them, together 
with all eggs and young larvae — this, possibly, because 
they have partially lost the faculty of tending brood. 
A case of this kind occurred to Mr. Hunter, and my 
incredulity was only overcome after I became a party 
to the experiments made with the colony. 
A discussion, conducted with too much positiveness 
on both sides, has recently been provoked in the 
British Bee Journal by a correspondent stating the 
following as a “ law ” which knows no exception : 
“ When bees have no queen, nor means of rearing 
one (z>., have no eggs, unsealed brood, or queen-cells 
in their hive), they will always accept a fertile queen at 
the flight-hole, or dropped in from the top. Providing 
they have been in such a state for forty-eight hours, 
it matters nothing how old the bees are, or how long 
they have been queenless, and it makes no difference 
how heavy the queen is with eggs, or how light, so 
' long as she is fertile, and given alone, without caging.” 
I have already noted that this is very usually true, 
but have given evidence that the asserted absolute 
uniformity of its application cannot be conceded. 
The “law” is, however, so far constant as to be of 
considerable value ; but the recommendation to remove 
the queen, and all combs containing eggs or brood 
(putting these into other stocks), and give the 
strange queen forty-eight hours after, is, as we shall 
