MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

176 DR. miller'sout destroys the other queens before they emerge; hence, thereshould not be afterswarming.(b) Yet the very fact of there being afterswarming showsthat the first queen does not stay to destroy subsequent ones,but one fiies off after the other.A. There is nothing mystical nor difficult of understandingwhen you get the whole story. When a virgin emerges from hercell, her first care is to find the cells of her younger royal sisters,with full intent to murder them in their cradles. With such frenzydoes she seem possessed in this regard that I have many a timeseen it the case that when a sealed cell was caged, the virgin,after gnawing her way out would dig a hole in the side of theempty cell, just as she would if a live virgin were in it. Alwaysyou may count on this murderous impulse on the part of thisroyal young personage, and if she were left to have her own waythere would never be any afterswarming.Now, however, comes the part that you have left out. Shedoes not always have her own way. In fact, calling her a ''queen''is a neat little fiction; the term "slave"' would be about as'appropriate.The government in the hive is not a monarchy, but ademocracy of the most democratic sort, run by a lot of suffragists,and the male person has no vote. If the workers vote that thetime has not yet come for the destruction of the young rivals,then a committee stands guard over each cell, driving away theyoung queen as often as she makes an attack.In the meantime several of the occupants of the cells may becomesufficiently matured to emerge, but they are not allowedto do so. The guards maintain a neutrality strict enough to suitPresident Wilson; they will not let the young queen get out ofthe cell, although she may have the capping of her cell gnawedaway all but a slight hinge ; and no more will they allow thequeen at liberty to get at the defenseless sisters in their cells.The free queen runs about frantically from one cell to another,at intervals crying, "Pe-e-e-ep, pe-e-ep, pe-ep, peep,'' in a shrillvoice, each shorter than the preceding one, and then the prisonersreply in a coarser tone, an apparently hurried "Quahk, quahk,quahk," and this piping and quahking will be kept up until aswarm emerges with the free queen. Then it depends upon thevote of the suffragists what further shall be done. If they votefor further swarming a single virgin is allowed to emerge fromher cell, and she in turn will go through the same performance asthe one who preceded her. But if the vote is for no further