Pulled Virgins
The title may puzzle some readers as it did the writer when he first encountered the term. Visions of frightened nuns being dragged around by cannibals, or of statues of female saints being torn from their niches by iconoclastic puritans soon fade when the simple explanation is given, The name is a not very happy description of a queen bee whose early experience of life has been a trifle abnormal, but it is shorter than any truly descriptive term that could easily be found.
A pulled virgin ia a young queen that emerged from her cell after it had been removed (hence "pulled") from the hive. She did not bite her way out of the cell into the rush and bustle of the hive life. She has never played hide-and-seek oflife and death over the combs with her sisters or flirted round the corner with her burly half-brothers. She has never taken a flight in the sunshine and memorised the position and general appearance of a hive. She probably crawled out of her cell into the gloomy and malodorous solitude of a matchbox, and made her first meal from a smear of honey found on the side of the box and this honey, strange though it's taste, she eagerly lapped up. She never saw a living creature for long hours, perhaps days of restless pacing up and down her narrow prison. Soft-hearted readers may now swallow the lump that was beginning to rise in their throats, brush away the tears of sympathy, and consider the virgin that was "pulled" and those that only pushed their own way out of the cell into the maelstrom of hideous hatred that is the common lot of the new-born queen. Her own mother would have stabbed her in the cradle. Her sisters would only have been thwarted by the ever watchful workers in their efforts to destroy her whilst a helpless white mummy-like creature. They would have squatted, tyrembling, trumpeting their defiance as they awaited her emergence from the cell. The human hand that removed the "ripe" cell probably saved her life, for in nature it is the lot of far more queens to be killed in battle than to reign.
What is the practical bee-keeper's interest in the pulled virgin? From his viewpoint has she anything that her naturally hatched sisters lack? Or is it that they have acquired some characteristics which she still lacks?
Young queens that have left their cells and spent a few days in the populous hive have something that the imprisoned queen has not acquired. It is sophistication -experience -a niche in the organised society of a colony, and possibly a distinctive hive odour. They may also, perhaps, have had a geography lesson and memorised the site of their hive.
The pulled virgin is very innocent and ignorant, although she has, of course, a full complement of instincts and full knowledge of how to exercise them, but she has never had a chance to do anything about it.
Her sister that was born in the hive was also born into the Hive Mind of that particular colony. She may have been bred as a necessary concomitant of swarming or of supersedure, or possibly as an emergency measure to replace a suddenly missing queen. She may have her part in the issue of a swarm or cast due to appear in two or three days. She may have done battle with other virgins in a colony that has no desire to swarm again, and having taken the necessary orientation flights she may be ripe to mate with a drone within a few hours.
If such a queen is to be lifted arbitrarily from her hive and introduced to a colony that is in a completely different physical and psychological condition from her parent colony she may, and often does, fail to enter into the new hive life, or she may return to the site which she has memorised if it is within her new orientation radius.
Most of the failures in introducing virgin queens that have been running in a hive may be attributed to their own hostile attitude toward the workers they first encounter in the new hive.
None of these troubles can occur with a pulled virgin. She is eager to enter into a hive life and mind, and is not in the least disposed to argue about politics with the first workers she meets. She has never had a flight, so that she has no predilection to return to some other spot.
In apiary practice it is sound policy for the bee-keeper to carry a few well-aired match boxes or queen cages with him, so that any cells on the point of giving birth to queens may be utilised. The young queens may be allowed to emerge from the cell into the box -only one into each box of course. No retinue of workers needed -in fact it is undesirable that she should meet any workers until she is in a hive. The caged queen should be kept in a warm, dark place, and be given a good drop of diluted honey daily. Of course the queens do not improve with long captivity, therefore it is wise to use them as quickly as possible. On the other hand, solitary confinement for up to a week is often found to have no apparent harmful effects. ........
.......When introducing sophisticated virgins a period of caging is generally necessary, but provided the colony has no adult queen, the pulled virgin is usually accepted without any ceremony, and either of the methods of direct introduction may safely be employed.
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Originally Posted by prakel
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