214 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
We have yet, however, to describe under what circura 
stances the majority of hives become queenless. More 
queens, whose loss cannot be supplied by the bees, perish 
when they leave the hive to meet the drones, than in all 
other ways. After the departure of the first swarm, the 
mother-stock and all the after-swarms have young queens 
which must leave the hive for impregnation ; their larger 
size and slower flight make them a more tempting prey 
to birds, while others are dashed, by sudden gusts of wind, 
against some hard object, or blown into the water: for, 
with all their queenly dignity, they are not exempt from 
mishaps common to the humblest of their race. 
In spite of their caution to mark the position and ap¬ 
pearance of their habitation (p. 125), the young queens 
frequently make a fatal mistake, and are destroyed, by 
attempting to enter the wrong hive. This accounts for 
the notorious fact, that ignorant bee-keepers, with forlorn 
and rickety hives, no two of which look just alike, are 
often more successful than those whose hives are of the 
best construction. The former—unless their hives are ex¬ 
cessively crowded—lose but few queens, while the latter 
lose them almost in exact proportion to the taste and skill 
which induced them to make their hives of uniform size, 
shape, and color. 
I first learned the full extent of the danger of crowded 
Apiaries, in the Summer of 1854. To protect my hives 
against extremes of heat and cold, they were ranged, side 
a tract of spermatic filaments While the intestines of those queens contained 
only a little limpid excrement, the rectum of a worker, examined at the same time, 
was filled with an enormous quantity of a dark, offensive f nbstaace. 
These drone-laying colonies were supplied with queens from other stocks, which, 
when opened In April, wero found to have raised queens In February. One queen 
was laying worker, and the other drone-eggs, and the former must have been Im¬ 
pregnated in March, and probably by somo of the brood of the drone-laying 
queens. Might not a few drone-laying queens bo kopt to advantage in lnrtw 
Apiaries f 
