Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee: A Bee Keeper's Manual

by L. L. Langstroth

When provision has been made, in the manner described, for a new race of queens, the old mother always departs with the first swarm, before her successors have arrived at maturity.[8]

Artificial Rearing of Queens.

The distress of the bees when they lose their queen, has already been described. If they have the means of supplying her loss, they soon calm down, and commence forthwith, the necessary steps for rearing another. The process of rearing queens artificially, to meet some special emergency, is even more wonderful than the natural one, which has already been described. Its success depends on the bees having worker-eggs or worms not more than three days old; (if older, the larva has been too far developed as a worker to admit of any change:) the bees nibble away the partitions of two cells adjoining a third, so as to make one large cell out of the three. They destroy the eggs or worms in two of these cells, while they place before the occupant of the third, the usual food of the young queens, and build out its cell, so as to give it ample space for development. They do not confine themselves to the attempt to rear a single queen, but to guard against failure, start a considerable number, although the work on all except a few, is usually soon discontinued.

In twelve or fourteen days, they are in possession of a new queen, precisely similar to one reared in the natural way, while the eggs which were laid at the same time in the adjoining cells, and which have been developed in the usual way, are nearly a week longer in coming to maturity.

I will give in this connection a description of an interesting experiment:

A large hive which stood at a distance from any other colony, was removed in the morning of a very pleasant day, to a new place, and another hive containing only empty comb, was put upon its stand. Thousands of workers which were out in the fields, or which left the old hive after its removal, returned to the familiar spot. It was affecting to witness their grief and despair: they flew in restless circles about the place which once contained their happy home, entered and left the new hive continually, expressing, in various ways, their lamentations over their cruel bereavement. Towards evening, they ceased to take wing, and roamed in restless platoons, in and out of the hive, and over its surface, acting all the time, as though in search of some lost treasure. I now gave them a piece of brood comb, containing worker eggs and worms, taken from a second swarm which being just established with its young queen, in a new hive, could have no intention of rearing young queens that season; therefore, it cannot be contended that this piece of comb contained what some are pleased to call "royal eggs." What followed the introduction of this brood comb, took place much quicker than it can be described. The bees which first touched it, raised a peculiar note, and in a moment, the comb was covered with a dense mass; their restless motions and mournful noises ceased, and a cheerful hum at once attested their delight! Despair gave place to hope, as they recognized in this small piece of comb, the means of deliverance. Suppose a large building filled with thousands of persons, tearing their hair, beating their breasts, and by piteous cries, as well as frantic gestures, giving vent to their despair; if now some one should enter this house of mourning, and by a single word, cause all these demonstrations of agony to give place to smiles and congratulations, the change could not be more wonderful and instantaneous, than that produced when the bees received the brood comb!

The Orientals call the honey bee, Deburrah, "She that speaketh." Would that this little insect might speak, and in words more eloquent than those of man's device, to the multitudes who allow themselves to reject the doctrines of revealed religion, because, as they assert, they are, on their face so utterly improbable, that they labor under an a priori objection strong enough to be fatal to their credibility. Do not nearly all the steps in the development of a queen from a worker-egg, labor under precisely the same objection? and have they not, for this very reason, always been regarded by great numbers of bee keepers, as unworthy of credence? If the favorite argument of infidels and errorists will not stand the test when applied to the wonders of the bee-hive, can it be regarded as entitled to any serious weight, when employed in framing objections against religious truths, and arrogantly taking to task the infinite Jehovah, for what He has been pleased to do or to teach? Give me the same latitude claimed by such objectors, and I can easily prove that a man is under no obligation to receive any of the wonders in the economy of the bee-hive, although he is himself an intelligent eye-witness that they are all substantial verities.

I shall quote, in this connection, from Huish, an English Apiarian of whom I have already spoken, because his objections to the discoveries of Huber, remind me so forcibly of both the spirit and principles of the great majority of those who object to the doctrines of revealed religion.

"If an individual, with the view of acquiring some knowledge of the natural history of the bee, or of its management, consult the works of Bagster, Bevan, or any of the periodicals which casually treat upon the subject, will he not rise from the study of them with his mind surcharged with falsities and mystification? Will he not discover through the whole of them a servile acquiescence in the opinions and discoveries of one man, however at variance they may be with truth or probability; and if he enter upon the discussion with his mind free from prejudice, will he not experience that an outrage has been committed upon his reason, in calling upon him to give assent to positions and principles which at best are merely assumed, but to which he is called upon dogmatically to subscribe his acquiescence as the indubitable results of experience, skill and ability? The editors of the works above alluded to, should boldly and indignantly have declared, that from their own experience in the natural economy of the insect, they were able to pronounce the circumstances as related by Huber to be directly impossible, and the whole of them based on fiction and imposition."