700 
QUEENS 
were ready to emerge. One day after being' 
sealed they are simply ordinary larvae 
altho rather larger than worker larvae of 
the same age; after two or three days, a 
head begins gradually to be “mapped out,” 
and, later, some legs are seen folded up; 
last of all, a pair of delicate wings come 
•from somewhere. (See Development of 
Bees.) Two days before emerging the au¬ 
thor has taken them out of the cell, and had 
them mature into perfect queens, by keep¬ 
ing them in a warm place. He has also 
taken them out of the cell before they were 
mature, held the white, still, corpse-like 
form in the hand, then put it back, waxed 
up the cell by warming a bit of wax in the 
lingers, and had it emerge three days after, 
as nice a queen as any. Mr. Langstroth 
mentions having seen the whole operation 
by placing a thin glass tube, open at both 
ends, in the cell, so as to have it inclose 
the queen, the bees being allowed to cap it 
as usual. This experiment was first made 
by Huber. With several such glass queen- 
cells the Avhole operation could be watched 
from beginning to end. See Observatory 
Hives. 
WHAT BECOMES OF THE QUEEN AFTER SHE 
LEAVES THE CELL? 
After she pushes open that hinged door, 
she generally begins by poking her head 
into the cells until she finds one containing 
unsealed honey, from which she takes a sip 
that, at least, indicates she likes that kind 
of provision. 
After she has.had her repast she begins 
to crawl about, partly to enjoy using the 
long strong legs God has given her, and 
partly because she knows that it is her 
allotted task to tear down the remaining 
queen-cells, if such there are. 1 f other 
queens have emerged before her, it is one of 
her first and foremost duties to look them 
up, and either reign supreme or die in the 
attempt. When all other cells have been 
removed, as they usually are where queens 
are wanted for other purposes, she has 
nothing to do but to promenade over the 
premises, monarch of all she surveys. If 
she ever sits down to take a rest, or takes a 
rest in any other position, during the first 
week of her life, the author has never been 
able to discover it. 
But suppose she does find another cell— 
what then? She sometimes runs around 
awhile; sometimes the bees tear it down, 
and sometimes she tears it down herself, 
with the same strong mandibles that she 
used to cut her way out of the cell at first. 
She usually makes the opening in the side 
of the cell. 
It is said that the queen immediately 
stings her helpless immature sister to make 
a sure thing of her destruction, but there 
is some doubt about this. Spots have been 
seen in the side of the queen that looked 
as if she had been stung. Such cells have 
been torn open, and nice queens matured 
from them. As these immature queens are 
very soft, the workers will soon pick them 
out of the cell, piece by piece. The author 
has sometimes placed them in the nursery 
and had them mature, minus a wing, a leg, 
or whatever portion the mischievous work¬ 
er had pulled away. From many observa¬ 
tions the queen generally tears a hole in the 
cell, or bites into it in such a way that the 
workers tear it all down, much in the way 
they do any mutilated or broken pieces of 
comb. See page 694. 
When queen-cells have been cut out, all 
the larvae that are in any way injured are 
at once thrown out, and none but the per¬ 
fect cells preserved. Bees never fuss with 
cripples, nor try to nurse up a bee that is 
wounded or maimed. They have just the 
same feeling for their fellows that a loco¬ 
motive might be expected to have for a 
man whom it had run over. They battle 
against anything that threatens the extinc¬ 
tion of the colony, it is true. There are no 
signs of their caring for one of their num¬ 
ber, or even having compassion on their 
helpless brood when it is wounded and suf¬ 
fering. 
When a queen emerges, the remaining 
cells are very soon torn down, as a general 
thing, but there are many exceptions. Where 
tAvo queens emerge at about the same time 
they also generally attempt to kill each 
other; but both are not killed. This prob¬ 
ably results from the fact that they can 
sting their rivals only in one certain way; 
and the one that, by strength or accident, 
gets the lucky position in the combat is 
sure to come off victorious. This explains 
hoAV a. very inferior virgin queen, that has 
entered the hive by accident, may some- 
