500 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ June 15, 1882. 
time. Whilst in flower they may be placed in the conservatory and 
continue in good condition some weeks. Plants of Allamandas, 
Ixoras, and Stephanotises intended to be moved to the conservatory 
when in flower should previously receive no more water for a few 
days than is necessary to prevent their flagging, and they must not 
be placed in a draughty position or the plants will be injured. 
Stephanotises grown in pots may, after flowering, if the plants are 
not already large enough, be further grown for a time before they are 
ripened, but if as large as required they may at once be so treated as 
to harden their growth, which can be done by placing them where 
they have moderate heat with a dry atmosphere. 
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PROLONGING THE LIFE OF THE QUEEN BEE. 
The celebrated physician Hufeland wrote a book on the art 
of prolonging human life. But if there can be a question of 
prolonging human life artificially, we might certainly expect to 
be able to prolong the life of bees, the more so as their term of 
life is attained under varying conditions and at different times of 
the season. While they exhaust their strength and die in about 
six weeks during the busiest time in spring and summer, bees 
reared late in the summer and in autumn look as strong and 
young on their first appearance in spring after six months’ rest 
during autumn and winter as if they had only just left their cells. 
What is applicable to bees in general must equally apply to the 
principal bee in the hive—the queen, and to her I shall chiefly 
refer in discussing the question of lire duration of life and the 
possibility of prolonging it. 
This question is as interesting as it is of practical importance. 
The case of so small an insect as a queen bee, which leaves her 
cell at the end of sixteen days, and might possibly be fertile and 
capable of propagating the species at the end of three weeks, to 
live to the age of four to five years or more, and to be able during 
this time to produce offspring to the number of about 1,500,000, 
has probably no parallel in the entire range of nature. The 
question as to the duration of the queen’s life and the possibility 
of prolonging it is of a highly practical importance where the 
introduction of a new and superior race of bees depends on a 
valuable queen bee, obtained, perhaps, at considerable expense. 
When a bee-master has no isolated apiary it is difficult to keep 
a race pure until a considerable number of colonies have been 
formed, which send out drones in large numbers. A bee-keeper 
of no great experience will also find it difficult to determine with 
certainly whether the young queen of a colony has been im¬ 
pregnated by a drone of her own race, especially when races do 
not greatly differ in colour. 
In rearing queens, bee-masters, therefore, as a matter of pre¬ 
caution, will always fail back upon the brood from the parent 
hive in the second, and even, perhaps, in the third year, and are 
anxious of course to preserve the old queen as long as possible. 
The question as to whether and how the life of a queen may be 
prolonged, was suggested to me by a dispute which had arisen 
between Miss Titz of Lasswitz, a great Silesian bee-keeper, and 
a bee-master of the name of St. 
Miss Titz, on the occasion of the Neissen meeting, showed some 
friends who paid a visit to her apiary, in addition to a number 
of curious objects, an Italian queen bee, which she stated to be 
six years old, adding that she had succeeded in keeping this 
particularly pure and valuable queen alive so long by keeping 
her from excessive breeding. Mr. St. was of a different opinion, 
maintaining that there was no doubt a young queen had been 
raised unnoticed, as, according to his long experience, the life of 
an Italian queen never exceeded three years. He further asserted 
that the eggs became developed in the ovary of the queen and 
pass involuntarily, it being impossible for any influence to be 
exerted on the ovary. In my opinion Mr. St. is wrong on both 
points. Although six years and one month is certainly an un¬ 
usually great age for a queen bee, it is not by any means im¬ 
possible and incredible that she might attain that age. Some 
years ago I myself had a queen which, though more than five 
years old, was still very active, and I have no doubt would have 
lived another year if I had not destroyed her. Mr. Hruschka 
assured me that he had had a queen which lived to the age of 
seven years. It appears, therefore, quite credible that the queen 
referred to lived to the age of six years, the more so as she was a 
fine and vigorous specimen, and was carefully kept from over¬ 
exerting herself. 
There is no doubt whatever that it is feasible and in the power 
of the bee-keeper at one time to stimulate the queen to excessive 
breeding, and at another time to induce her to deposit few eggs 
or none at all. By keeping the entire colony quiet in spring as 
long as possible premature breeding is prevented, and the queen 
does not waste her strength. 
When once she has commenced laying eggs she knows perfectly 
well how to accommodate herself to circumstances and the re¬ 
quirements of the colony as regards the number of eggs to be 
deposited. According to the quantity and quality of the food she 
has taken she produces and deposits as many eggs as the colony 
is capable of attending to. It is certain that the queen is also 
able to keep a mature egg back in the ovary for some time with¬ 
out injury to herself or to the egg, as she is often obliged to 
examine a number of cells before she finds one that is empty and 
suitable, and in which she deposits the eggs, which undoubtedly 
would have been deposited into the first cell examined by the 
queen if she had found it empty and otherwise suitable. A much 
larger number of eggs will therefore in the same time be deposited 
in an empty comb inserted into the brood nest, because on an 
empty comb she can pass from cell to cell, there being no need 
for her to examine any cell nor to pass any over. A comb con¬ 
taining six thousand cells is often found full of eggs at the end of 
two days, which shows that a vigorous queen is capable of laying 
as many as three thousand eggs a day. We might be inclined to 
consider that the queen was over-exerting herself at that rate, and 
in a certain sense we should be correct; but we must not for a 
moment suppose that such productiveness would fatigue or incon¬ 
venience the queen. She evidently discharges with energy and 
pleasure her duty to increase the population of her hive as much 
as possible, and the less hindrance she experiences in doing so the 
better she will be. The most vigorous queens, therefore, are always 
to be found in the largest colonies, where of course the number of 
eggs deposited is largest. Where the queen is obliged to discon¬ 
tinue laying eggs on account of the stock having but a small 
population fatal consequences seem to result. 
In former years before the Italian bees had become acclimatised, 
which has now been fully accomplished after twenty-nine years’ 
manipulation, I frequently experienced the loss of Italian queens 
in weak stocks after they had commenced depositing eggs in 
spring, but were compelled to discontinue on a sudden change in 
the weather, because the bees were obliged to crowd together 
again into a thick cluster. The abdomen of the queen in such 
cases being found very much distended, the conclusion was forced 
upon me that the impossibility of depositing the eggs formed in 
the ovary had proved fatal to the queens. 
This unpleasant occurrence has never happened in any of my 
strong colonies, undoubtedly because the queen was always able 
to deposit eggs regularly, even during cold weather. But the 
fact that queens in strong colonies are always in first-rate con¬ 
dition at the time of their greatest prolificness does not exclude 
the possibility, or even probability, of their becoming exhausted 
sooner, or dying prematurely. Professional physiologists alone 
will be able to answer the question as to whether a queen bee is 
only capable of laying a definite number of eggs, or whether eggs 
are produced indefinitely as long as the vital power of the queen 
lasts. Practically it might perhaps be decided by ascertaining 
how long the queen lives in Australia, where she lays eggs con¬ 
tinuously, because Nature produces flowers there without interrup¬ 
tion throughout the year; and how long she lives in our own 
country, where the activity of the bees, and consequently the 
activity of the queen, is dormant for about five months of the 
year. 
No bee-master is likely to think of economising the strength 
of ordinary queens. Everyone is anxious that the workers should 
be as industrious and the queen as prolific as possible. But if it 
is a matter of keeping some especially valuable queens alive as 
long as possible, and the questiou arises as to whether it is possible 
to prolong their life artificially, we are obliged to answer in the 
affirmative.— Dr. Dzierzon, Carl&markt, February 22nd, 1SS2. 
FEEDING BEES. 
If all the districts of England are as unfavourable for bees at 
present as that of Cheshire, feeding—vigorous feeding—should be 
considered the most important duty of the apiarian. Hives are 
very full of bees, and large hives well filled with bees require 
much food—at least a winebottle full of syrup each every day. 
Indeed, that is hardly enough to keep a hive containing forty 
thousand bees in health and prosperity if no field pickings are ob¬ 
tained. The season here has been so unfavourable that drones 
have been killed as soon as born in hives not vigorously fed. All 
young bee-keepers should know that hives on the point of swarm- 
