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| I had no thought of violets of late, The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet In wistful April days, when lovers mate And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. The thought of violets meant florists' shops, And bows and pins, an... Read more of Sonnet at Martin Luther King.ca | Informational.ca Privacy |
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Most ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive Remedial Experiments Ignorance Of Officers And Committees Bee Pasturage Not Properly Understood Burying Bees Expense Of Renewing Combs A Moth Can Go Where Bees Can Least ViewedAn Experiment 2An Experiment Bees Do Not Increase If Full After The First Year In Same Hive Remedial Experiments Ignorance Of Officers And Committees Bee Pasturage Not Properly Understood Burying Bees Expense Of Renewing Combs A Moth Can Go Where Bees Can |
A Disputed QuestionCategory: LOSS OF QUEENS. We now approach another disputed point in natural history, relative to the queen leaving at any time except when leading out a swarm. Most writers say that the young queen leaves the hive, and meets her paramour, the drone, on the wing. Others deny this _positively_, having watched a whole summer without seeing her highness leave. Consequently they have arrived at the very plausible and apparently consistent conclusion, that nature never intended it to be so, since it must happen at a time when the existence of the whole family depends entirely on the life of the queen. The stock at such times contains no eggs or larvae, from which to rear another, if she should be lost. "The chances at such times of being devoured by birds, blown away by the winds, and other casualties, are too many, and it is not probable the Creator would have so arranged it." But facts are stubborn things; they will not yield one jot to favor the most "finely-spun hypothesis;" they are most provokingly obstinate, many times. When man, without the necessary observation, takes a survey through animated nature, and finds with scarcely an exception that male and female are about equal in number, he is ready, and often does conclude that one bee among thousands cannot be the only one capable of reproduction or depositing eggs. Why, the idea is preposterous! And yet only a little observation will upset this very consistent and analogous reasoning. So it appears to be with the excursions of the young queens. I was compelled, though reluctantly, to admit that they leave the hive. That their purpose is to meet the drones, I cannot at present contradict. Also, that, when the queen is once impregnated, it is operative for life, (yet it is another anomaly), as I never detected her coming out again for that purpose. What then is the use of the ten thousand drones that never fulfil this important duty? It seems, indeed, like a useless waste of labor and honey, for each stock to rear some twelve or fifteen hundred, when perhaps but one, sometimes not any of the whole number is of any use. If the risk is great in the queen's leaving, we find it arranged admirably in its not being too frequent. Next: A Multitude Of Drones Needed Previous: Of Swarms That Lose Their Queen
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