Insect miscellanies / [Anon].

Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect miscellanies / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    309/452 (page 287)
    the royal cells are after her departure assiduously watched by the workers. ‘ At length,’ says the elder Huber, ‘the female hatched from the first egg laid by the old queen leaves her cell; the workers then treat her with indifference. But impelled by the instinct which urges her to destroy her rivals, she secks the cells where they are enclosed; yet no sooner does she approach than the sentinel bees bite, pull, and harass her, so that she is forced to remove, though the royal cells being numerous she can scarcely find a place of rest. _Incessantly- animated with the desire of attacking the other queens, and as continually repelled, she becomes agitated, and hastily traverses the different groups of workers, to which she communicates her disorder. At this moment numbers of bees rush towards the aperture of the hive, and, accompanied by the young queen, forsake it to seek another residence. After the departure of this second colony, the remaining workers set another queen at liberty, and treat her with equal indifference as the first. They drive her from the royal cells; she, also, from being perpetually harassed, becomes agitated, departs, and carries along with her a third swarm. In a populous hive this scene is repeated with the same circumstances three or four times — during the summer, The number of bees being then so much reduced, they are no longer capable of pre- serving a strict watch over the royal ‘cells; several females are enabled to leave their confinement: at once, when they seek each other, fight, and the queen who is at last victorious reigns peaceably over the republic.’* ! For two or three nights previous to the departure of a swarm, a singular humming sound is’ heard in the hive. The sounds, which are sharp and clear, -* Huber on Bees, 176.