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closer together, be it through the growth of the two groups, or through the arrival of cold weather. The
disorder created by the departure of a secondary swarm favours for a while the presence of several
hatched queens at the same time.
Antipathy of queens
When two queens meet, they attack one another. The strongest or the most able pierces the
abdomen of the weaker one with its sting. Death is the result. Sometimes two queens sting each other,
as happens to two duellists, and kill each other.
This antipathy exists between all mated queens, virgins or even queens still enclosed in their cell.
When the bees raise queens for whatever reason, they make several queen cells, ten to fifteen.
Now the queen that first hatches hurries to find the cells where her sisters are preparing to hatch, and
pierces them with her sting.
I observe here a means of rigorous selection given by nature to the bee. Only one queen is saved
out of ten or fifteen. For this queen is the one who was the first to lift the cover of her cell; she is the
most vigorous.
Disappearance of the queen
During visits to hives one frequently sees very tight clumps of bees. If one separates them by
force, or by heavy smoking, one finds a queen in the middle. Such a queen is said to be balled.
This embrace of the bees is caused by joy or antipathy.
When a beekeeper has kept a queen separated from her colony for too long, when he has not
enabled a queen to leave her introduction cage quickly enough, or when there is robbing and danger
for the queen, the bees in their excessive excitement press themselves round the queen as hard as they
can, squeezing her, clasping her and suffocating her.
At other times this is caused by antipathy; it is accompanied by stings and a rapid death follows.
This happens to old infertile queens, shortly after the hatching of their successor; to queens that
the beekeeper has kept too long between his fingers or hands, thus changing the particular scent that
enables the workers to recognise her; and to young queens who on returning from mating, enter a
foreign hive that is too near their own.
Consequences of the disappearance of the queen
A colony deprived of its queen is described as queenless. If the queen disappears and is not
replaced by the beekeeper or the bees, the population of the colony diminishes rapidly until it
disappears.
The importance of the queen
Her presence is necessary because only the queen lays the eggs destined for perpetuating the
family. Nature too has taken all possible measures to keep her alive.
The queen is mated in the air during flight. These circumstances make this act dangerous for an
insect as fragile as a bee. It is also unique.
The queen bee meets the male only once in her life. And subsequently never leaves her combs
unless in the midst of a swarm that is leaving to start a new home.