The of the queen, takes place in the air, and usually within a few days after she has emerged from the cell. It is the only occasion of her ever leaving the hive, except that of swarming. The question has therefore been asked, why there are so many males in a bee community; but no very satisfactory answer has been given to it. The males are not known to fulfill any other purpose than that of the propagation of their species; and after the swarming season is over, the greater part of them are ruthlessly massacred by the workers, as if ill dread of their consuming too much of the common store. The greater part of the work ers themselves are supposed to live for from one to nine months; the duration of the life of the queen bees is rarely more than three years.
An eloquent and picturesque narrative of the nuptial flight of the queen bee has been given by Maurice Maeterlinck in his book, The Life of the Bee, from which the following is quoted, some what condensed: "Around the virgin queen, and dwelling with her in the hive, are hundreds of exuberant males, forever drunk on honey; the sole reason for their existence being one act of love. But . .. the union never takes place in the hive, nor has it been possible to bring about the impregnation of a captive queen. While she lives in their midst the lovers about her never know what she is. Each day, from noon until three, when the sun shines resplendent, this plumed horde sallies forth in search of the bride, who is indeed more royal, more difficult of conquest, than the most inaccessible princess of fairy legend; for twenty or thirty tribes will hasten from all the neigh boring cities, her court thus consisting of more than 10,000 suitors, and from these 10,000 one alone will be chosen. However great her impa tience, she will yet choose her day and her hour, and linger in the shadow of the portal till a marvelous morning fling wide open the nuptial spaces in the depths of the great azure vault. . . . Then she appears on the threshold. . . . She starts to fly backward; returns twice or thrice to the alighting-board; and then, having definitely fixed in her mind the exact situation and aspect of the kingdom she has never yet seen from without, she departs like an arrow to the zenith of the blue. She soars to a height, a luminous zone, that other bees attain at no period of their life. Far away, caressing their idleness in the midst of the flowers, the males have beheld the apparition. . . . Immediately
crowds collect, and follow her into the sea of gladness, whose limpid boundaries ever recede. She, drunk with her ro•ings, obeying the mag nificent law of the race that chooses her lover, and enacts that the strongest alone shall attain her in the solitude of the ether, she rises still. . . . A region must be found unhaunted by birds, that else might profane the mystery. She rises still; and already the ill-assorted troop below are dwindling and falling asunder. The feeble, infirm, the aged, unwelcome, ill-fed, who have flown from inactive or impoverished cities, these renounce the pursuit and disappear in the void. Only a small, indefatigable cluster re main, suspended in infinite opal. She summons her wings for one final effort; and now the chosen of incomprehensible forces has seized her, and bounding aloft with united impetus, the as cending spiral of their intertwined flight whirls for one second in the hostile madness of love." No sooner has the union been accomplished than the male's abdomen opens. the organ de taches itself, dragging with it a mass of en trails, and the emptied body falls dead toward the earth. This extraordinary flight and its tragedy seem to be Nature's effort to secure cross-fertilization, and at the same time a selec tion of the best available mates. To the queen mother of the hive is given a power of flight that only the strongest males can equal; nor does either of them seem much inclined to copulate until their air-tubes are distended with air and until under the excitement of extreme exertion. ]fence, the lofty flight is necessary, and the best one of all the males alone can overtake the fleeing queen. After impregnation, the queen returns to her hive, is cleaned and cared for by the workers, and thenceforth de votes herself to motherhood for the increase of her tribe.
Eggs and Young.—The queen bee, when about to begin to lay eggs, is the object of great atten tion on the part of the workers. She moves about in the hire, attended by a sort of retinue of about 10 or 15 workers, by some of which she is frequently supplied with honey. But the Dame of queen bee appears to have originated in a mistaken notion that something analogous to a monarchy subsists in the beehive; and imagination being permitted free scope, many things have been invested with a false coloring derited from this analogy.