The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1891-09-05

either the queen or the worker; the ia ls,..
and unwieldly, incapable of selfsunro.. =
and unable TO perform any ofthe function.
of the hive; and very soon after the hone.
harvest 10 commenced, he is driven BY n.
workers" from the hiye and perishes att,
q life even shorter than that of the wo,k.-
ending In wretchedness and starvation h.
is elected time and again but the"workers,n
sting Is not used.
The queen Is very large, and very hand.
some, she Is full of dignity and grace and
the reverence with which she is received h~
the bees as she moves among them IN ~.
various departments of her home ia bean,;
full to behold. The court etiquette of row.
atty which forbids the turning of the bach
in the royal presence, must have been Dor.
rowed from the hive. AS the queen moves
along in motherly dignity through the
crowded avenues she is surrounded bv her
subjects their heads lowered, those n front
moving slowly backwards as she advances
Every swarmhas it's peculiar scent. and
the presence of stranger is Immediately
detected thereby. A foreign queen can
be introduced into a queenless hive bv
introducing in the closed hive when all Of
the swarm is present a perfume of anv
kind. The new queen, after being treated
with the same, may be introduced with
safety. The queen is also armed with a
sting, but it is blunt and incapable of
inficting a wound. It is given to her
apparently only to be used in combat
with another queen. The queens have
upon their body, several spiracles or
breathing orifices. When two queens
happen to come into contact, a duel to
the death is the consequence. They seize
each other with their mouths and the
aim of each is to find with their sting
onesof these holes. While tearing each
other with their mouths their agile
bodies are searching for the vulnerable
point into which the blunt sting is thrust
and the victim falls instantly dead, under
the effect of the injected poison; as the
sting is not barbed it is withdrawn with
safety.
If queen is lost by any cause, the
workers, as soon as the fact is realized,
ransack the cells to find a newly laid egg.
If they find one not more than two or
three days old, they at once proceed to
tear down the walls of the cell which
contains it and enlarge it to fit it for the
new purpose, to-wit: the cell for a queen
Then, nursing this germ, which under
ordinary circumstances would develop
worker bee, they feed with what apiar-
lists call royal honey, and as the grub rap
idly develops the cell is again changed by
the addition at its mouth, and pendant
and vertical, of an enlarged cell, shaped
much like an acorn. In this the later
transformation takes place and the insect
energies q royal queen.
II the apiarist knows Of the loss Of the
queen and finds that the bees have taken
no steps towards supplying one, he con-
cludes that they are unable to find suit
able egg, and he searches his hives and
finding a freshly, laid egg he cuts out a
cube of the comb containing the new egg,
and inserts it into a comb in the bereaved
hive, and the bees take immediate charge,
make all secure, and carry on the process
as above, and establish their queen.
If from any cause swarm be much
reduced in number, the exact perform
ance of the duties exacted by their organ
ization is impossible, the proper prepare
ton of the cells fails, fewer bees are pro-
duced, the temperature of the hive falls,
the young are imperfectly cared for, the
moth invades the hive, and the destruc-
ton of the colony is but matter of time.
Now, from the above, it would seem to
be an indisputable fact that when the
Creator, by his ''iat," spoke the bee into
existence, He created in that one act, not
only the king or drone, and the queen or
mother, but also q full swarm of the
workers" for it has been shown by the
above history that each one of these fac
tors, the male, the female and the full
sscarm, were absolutely necessary from
the same moment of creation, to the ex-
istence of the bee as we know it. "The
full swarm" because as has been shown,
in proportion to the reduction OF the num-
Der of the bees constituting the swarm,
just in that proportion are the vital func'
tions of the swarm diminished, and the
gradual extinction consummated.
Not the least striking part of this wonder
full creation, is the evidence of the divine
design in providing for the queen her
peculiar sting. were it otherwise, the
destruction of the race would be inevitable
for, like the worker" her sting would be
turned upon every enemy and she would
perish, and with her, the swarm.
If there were no other of the myriad OF
unquestionable evidences of direct divine