LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 
223 
rninish the labor and perplexity of the bee-keeper. I have 
devised a way of doing this, so as to designate the age of 
the queens : — With a pair of scissors, let the wings, on 
one side, of a young queen be carefully cut off : when the 
hives are examined next year, let one of her two remain- 
ing wings be removed, and the last one the third year. 
The fertility of queens usually decreases after the second 
year, and before they die of old age the contents of their 
spermathecas sometimes become exhausted, and they lay 
only drone-eggs.* Unless, therefore, queens are unusually 
fertile, it will be safer to remove them after they have 
entered on their third year.f 
A young queen, or a sealed royal cell, should be given 
to a colony, the second day after the old one is removed — 
for if they raise a queen from the egg, she may find nearly 
all the cells filled with honey or bee-bread, and the popu- 
lation greatly reduced. 
Early in October — when some brood is usually found in 
every healthy stock, and when all the colonies should be 
examined, with reference to the coming Winter — if any 
are found to be queenless, they should be united to other 
stocks. If, however, the old queens were seasonably re- 
moved, and the stocks that raised young ones were 
properly attended to, few queenless colonies will be found in 
which enamel anti perfume two-thirds of the sheep-walks. This priest cautiously 
seizes the queens in a small crape fly-catch, and then clips off their wings. He 
assured me that he never lost a swarm from the day of this discovery to the day 
ho saw me, which was, I think, five years after." — p. 77. 
* Piisel says, that a queen that has suffered from hunger for 24 hours never re- 
covers her wonted fertility. I shall show, in another place, that after recovering 
from severe cold, queens cease to lay worker-eggs. 
t “ Queens differ much as to the degree of their fertility. Those are best which 
deposit their eggs with uniform regularity, leaving no cells unsuppliod — ns tho 
brood hatches at the same time ou tho same range of comb, which can be again 
supplied : the queen thus losing no time in searching for empty colls ." — Dzierzoiu 
In bee-life, ns well as in human affairs, those who are systematic, ordinarily accom- 
plish the most. 
