Queen (insect)

“ And then—well, then the queen hurried back up to her city, just in time to help out of its cell the first of her children—and citizens at last—the first limp, clambering, damp, newly painted, freshly bedecked young worker-wasp, perfect from feeler to sting, from wing to claw.
Quickly they broke out now from the cocoons, and the queen bustled from one to the other, assisting, cleaning, encouraging; for it is a tricky job for an insect to come out of its chrysalis-case. ”

“ The queen-termite is a very rare insect, and as there are seldom more than one, or at most two, to a colony, and as the royal apartments are hidden far in the earth, few persons have ever seen a queen, and indeed most, if they did happen to come across it, from its very singular appearance, would refuse to believe that it had any connection with white ants. ”

“ The queen wasp is, in point of activity, energy, and intelligence, far ahead of the queen bee. As soon as the latter leaves her cell a perfect insect, she is waited upon by a crowd of workers, who provide her with food, attend her every movement, and forestall her every wish, and her functions are confined solely to the laying of her eggs. The queen wasp, on the contrary, is the founder as well as the mother of her colony. When she wakes up from her lethargy in the spring, she sallies out to find a suitable spot for her future kingdom. ”

“ Huber and Schmiedeknecht state that though the queen provides the worker-cells with food before the eggs are placed therein, yet no food is put in the cells in which males and females are produced. The queen, at the time of pupation of the larvae, scrapes away the wax by which the cocoons are covered, thus facilitating the escape of the perfect Insect, and, it may also be, aiding the access of air to the pupa. The colony at first grows very slowly, as the queen can, unaided, feed only a small number of larvae. ”

“ It is a matter of choice among the workers whether any female larva shall develop into a worker or a queen. By giving more room for growth, and more and better food, they can produce a queen from any female larva chosen at will. By contracting the growth-space and diminishing the food, the power of development is checked, and the insect, in its pupal stage, becomes incapable of developing sexual organs and powers. ”

“ But all this is changed if these larvæ are moved into the large cells and fed on this royal pabulum; they then become veritable queens. If, with us, the coat does not make the man nor the frock the monk, it is certain that with the bees the cradle helps materially to make the queen.
When the queen through some accident or other has perished, the plebeian population of the hive very quickly perceive the misfortune, and without losing time in useless regrets, apply themselves to repair their loss. ”

“ They do not employ their stings against an intruding queen, except in the case of an attempt being made to deliver her from their clutches: they get rid of her by stifling.
When it is wished to introduce into a hive a stranger queen, after having removed the original sovereign, many precautions must be used before putting her into the common home. It is only after some time that the bees become aware of the disappearance of their queen; but they then manifest great emotion. They run hither and thither, as though mad, leaving off their work, and making a peculiar buzzing sound. ”

“ Yet, with even these figures as an advertisement, the queen bee cannot boast of superlative fecundity, as the queen white-ant—an insect closely related to the bees in habits, though not in structure, as the white-ants are lace-wings and belong to the sub-order Neuroptera, which includes our day-flies, dragon-flies, etc.—is known to lay over 80,000 eggs daily. Yet this poor helpless thing, whose abdomen is the size of a man's thumb, and composed almost wholly of eggs, while the rest of her body is not larger than the same in our common ants, has no other amusement; she cannot walk ”

“ The royal insect is not permitted to leave the cell, and, as generally happens, to lead off a swarm, unless the weather be very favourable. Were she to obtain her liberty, while, at the same time, emigration was prevented by the state of the external atmosphere, or other circumstances, there would be a plurality of Queens in the hive, and mortal strife would ensue. The young Queen, therefore, is detained a captive, and the workers, piercing a hole in the cover of the cell, insert their probosces, and supply her with food during her captivity. ”

“ The queen-wasp makes at first only a very small group of three or four incomplete cells; each cell is at first circular, or nearly so, and moreover is of smaller diameter than it will afterwards be. In each of the first three or four incomplete cells an egg is laid, and more cells are commenced; but as the eggs soon hatch and produce larvae that grow rapidly, the labours of the queen-wasp are chiefly directed to feeding the young. At first she supplies them with saccharine matter, which she procures from flowers or fruits, but soon gives them a stronger diet of insect meat. ”

“ Such bees, although a number of individuals often make their nests close together, are termed “solitary,” their communities differing in nature from those of the “social” bees, among which there are two kinds of females—the normal fertile females or “queens,” and those specially modified females with undeveloped ovaries (see fig. 6) that are called “workers” (fig. 1) . The workers are the earliest developed offspring of the queen, and it is their associated work which renders possible the rise of an insect state—a state which evidently has its origin in the family. ”

“ When the moment for the metamorphosis has come, the orifice of the tube is closed, and the bees await the hatching of the new queen. Thus the loss of the queen is speedily replaced. The larvæ of the queens, when they are shut up in their cells, have the head downwards, whilst the larvæ of the males have the head upwards. Their hatching takes place thirteen days after the laying of the eggs.
As soon as they have quitted their cradles, the young queens are ready to take flight. The others, workers and males, are less strongly organised. ”

“ It is apparent that the irregular disposition of the cells is due to their being constructed so peculiarly by the larvæ. After the first brood, composed of workers, has come forth, the queen bee devotes her time principally to her duties at home, the workers supplying the colony with honey and pollen. As the queen continues prolific, more workers are added, and the nest is rapidly enlarged. ”

“ Early in the summer the workers construct the large, flask-shaped queen-cells, which are placed on the edge of the comb, and in these the queen larvæ are fed with rich and choice food. The old queen deserts the nest, forming a new colony. The new-born queen takes her marriage flight high in the air with a drone, and on her return undertakes the management of the hive, and the duty of laying eggs. When the supply of queens is exhausted, the workers destroy the drones. The first brood of workers live about six weeks in summer, and then give way to a new brood. ”

“ The males fall to the ground and die. The queens break off their wings, because they never need them after the wedding journey.
"They look about for a good place to start a new home. The first thing the queen does is to lay her eggs in a neat little pile. These soon hatch out into larvæ; tiny, worm-like grubs without any legs. Queen ants feed their babies faithfully with nice, tender insects, which they chew for them. Sometimes these larvæ spin a tiny cocoon, in which they lie quietly while they are being made over into ants—perhaps into a queen, like the mother, or a male, like the father ”

“ It is important for the safety of the queen-bee that her stay in the air should be as brief as possible: her large size, and the slowness of her flight, render her an easy prey to birds. It is not now thought that the queen always pairs with a drone of the same hive, as Huber seems to have supposed. Once impregnated,—as is the case with most insects,—the queen-bee continues productive during the remainder of her existence. It has, however, been found that though old queens cease to lay worker eggs, they may continue to lay those of drones. ”

“ The young females (“workers”) that develop from the eggs laid in these early cells assist the queen by building fresh cells and gathering food for storage therein. The queen may be altogether relieved of the work of the nest as the season advances, so that she can devote all her energies to egg-laying, and the colony grows rapidly. The distinction between queen and worker is not always clear among humble-bees, the female insects varying in size and in the development of their ovaries. If any mishap befall the queen, the workers can sometimes keep the community from dying out. ”

“ By removing the queen.—Some apiarists remove the queen during the honey-harvest and cut out all the queen cells. They give the queen a nucleus if they wish more brood; meanwhile the colony will not swarm without her. Whether queenless bees are as easy in their minds and, therefore, as ready and enthusiastic in the task of gathering honey, is a mooted question. Bees, like people, work to the best advantage when they have fewest worries. One difficulty with this method is that before we are aware of it a queen may be reared despite our careful and onorous labours in hunting for queen cells. ”

“ The screen is first removed from the top, the bees shaken from it, then the combs are taken out, one at a time, and all the bees brushed from them into a hive-cap. While doing this work some of the bees may attempt to fly, or crawl up the sides of the cap, if they do, more smoke is blown among them, when they soon quiet down and remain so for quite awhile. When all the bees have been removed, the queen should be hunted up. If the work of finding the queen is rightly done, it will not require but a few minutes to find her. ”

“ I know that when royal cells are to be torn down, and inchoate queens destroyed, the workers aid the queen in this destruction. I have also seen queens pass by unguarded queen-cells, and yet respect them. I have also seen several young queens dwelling amicably together in the same hive. Is it not probable that the bees are united in whatever is to be accomplished, and that when queens are to be destroyed all spring to the work, and when they are to live all regard them as sacred? ”

“ How is it that an egg deposited by the queen-mother in a more than ordinarily capacious compartment hatches a grub, "just like any other," which grub, feasting upon the concentrated food stored within its cell, expands and lengthens and emerges an amber queen in all her glory? Bee-keepers learn that the queen and the drones are the only perfect insects in the hive, the hoard of willing, bustling slaves being females in a state of arrested development. Each worker might have been a queen but for the fact that environment and a special food were not vouchsafed in the embryonic stage. ”

“ The combs of all cell-building colonies should be well filled with honey and pollen. It would be the merest folly to attempt to rear queens when the whole or even a part of the apiary is in a state of semi-starvation. So you see queen-rearing should not be commenced in the spring until the weather is quite warm and the bees have had a chance to breed up, fill all combs with brood and gather nectar from the early bloom. Give the bees time enough on the early bloom to get the swarming fever on. ”

“ All insects have a brain, a sort of spinal marrow, and nerves; they have no fat except when in the chrysalis state; but they have a fibrous flesh of a whitish color. They have also viscera, trachea, nerves, and a most complicated organization.
[192] Cuvier says that the three kinds of cells are absolutely necessary, and that they do not depend on the greater or less abundance. The king of the ancients is what we know as the queen bee.
[193] They do not work, but are the males of the hive.
[194] The queen has a sting, like the working bees, but uses it less frequently. ”

“ Other queens become gradually developed, and other swarms similarly accompany them, but each swarm successively diminishes in the number of its participating emigrants, the last consisting perhaps of not more than two thousand. The order of the hive is speedily restored after each swarming convulsion has subsided, until the population being sufficiently reduced, the motive to leave is destroyed, and the queen is then permitted to execute her murderous onslaught on the hapless young queens, which are either still embryonic, or, if developed, have not been allowed to leave their cells ”

“ If the bee is guided by instinct alone, and the production of a queen depended on the depositing of a peculiar egg by the queen in a royal cell (an egg, differing from the worker or drone eggs) , it would follow that, on the loss or removal of the queen when no such eggs existed in the hive, no young queens could be produced.
Small queens may be produced in nuclei where the requisite food is limited, and where from want of bees the larva is exposed to repeated changes of temperature, which is detrimental. When reared in full stocks in times of great scarcity, nearly the same results follow. ”

“ Most bee-keepers consider the after-swarm as a manifestation of "pure cussedness" on the part of a colony; but it is only a poorly adjusted method practised by the bees for getting rid of superfluous princesses. After the old queen decamps with her followers, there are usually several queens ready to emerge from their cells; the ordinary story, as told in books, is that the first queen that emerges hastens to slay her yet helpless sisters, or battles with them singly until but one queen is left in the hive; and this actually does occur often. ”