The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1888-09-28

A0ohbOA VA HNSSA SNAAo OAN NNAAo1 AVOAhAS
not unlike SO many peanuts, each queen
cell taking as much wax in its construc-
tion as would make great many drone
or worker cells. A queen cell is not
six sided but round. and the young
queen, while in it, has several times as
much room as the other yonng bees.
About ten days before the yonng
queens are old enough to emerge from
their cells, the swarm issues. The old
queen gees off with the swarm, aud
when the first young queen matches, a
second swarm is likely to issue, to be
sometimes followed in two or three
days by third, and not rarely by a
fourth and even a fifth.
The young queens seem to have a
mortal antipathy to each other, and as
soon as one such queen matches, her
first business is to proceed, if allowed,
to destroy her unmatched royal sisters.
This she does by digging hole in the
side a queen cell, and stinging the in
mate in its cradle. IF further swarm
| ing is contemplated by the workers,
they defend the unmatched queens from
the attack Of the one at liberty, which
goes off with the swarm. Previous to
going off, however, this young queen
may be heard, especially in the still of
the evening, utteriug a shrill cry,
"Pe.e.p, peep. peep" replied to by the
young queens in their cells, "Quahk,
quahk."
When no further swarming is intend
ed, all the young queens who are sufic.
iently matured are allowed to emerge
from their cells, and when two of these
meet, deadly combat ensues. One
of them stings the other to death
and strangely enough the victor is
never injured in the struggle, for Meth.
er one stings till she gets in position
to deal death thrust without danger
to herself. In this way the conflict
continues till all the queens but one are
killed, and those remaining unmatched
are despatched in ther cradles.
These queen cells, of which I have
been speaking, are usually found on the
edges of the comb, and sometimes even
on the wood that surrounds the comb.
If a hole happens to be in any part of a
comb the bees are likely to make use of
the space for queen cell. If the
queen is at any time lost, when no pre-.
vious preparation has been made for
rearing young queen, different course
is pursued.
The bees select young larva in a
worker cell, which under ordinary cir
cumstances, would have produced a
worker, enlarge its cell greatly, destroy.
ing. it necessary, the adjacent cells for
that purpose, feed it lavishly so that
the little grub is Utterly swimming in
sea of food, and in due time it emerges
perfect queen.
If it should happen that nothing but
drono eggs are in the hive, the poor
bees will try their best to rear queen
from one Of these, but it never grows
into anything but drone, and, think,
always dies in the cell. The fact is,
there are only two kinds of eggs, drone
and worker or queen, for any and every
worker egg with the right kind of food
and treatment will produce a queen.
The young worker has its rations
very accurately dealt out, just enough,
and not particle is left over but there
Is no stint in feeding the young queen,
and when she matches out of her cell
there is usually enough food (or royal
Jelly, as it is ealled) left to make one
think another queen might have been
reared on it.
The time required for Matching ont
the perfect bee from the laying of the
egg is, for the drone twenty four days,
for the worker twenty-one, and for the
queen sixteen. Cnriously enough, the
one that natures the soonest lives the
longest, for the queen attains the age of
two, three and sometimes five years.
The life of the worker seems to de-
pend on the amount of work it does, in
six weeks but those which are hatched
late in summer live over till the next
spring. 1t is hard to tell just how long
the drone would live if Jet aloue, for
when forage in the fields becomes scarce