COMPARATIVE VARIABILITY IN THE HONEY BEE. 35 



for and the following facts seem to us to help in this. The 

 workers in a hive are hatched from cells one fifth of an inch in 

 width and the size of these cells is remarkably uniform. On the 

 other hand the drones hatch from cells which are generally one 

 fourth of an inch in width, but often hatch in worker cells and from 

 cells of all intermediate sizes. In the making of the comb under 

 natural conditions there are a great many irregular cells formed 

 which are transition cells between the worker and drone cells, 

 and from these, if used for brood at all, drones are produced. It 

 is true that sometimes a worker is produced in a drone cell, but 

 this is very rare, provided there are any worker cells in the 

 hive. Drone pupae, on the contrary, are frequently seen in 

 worker cells and are very noticeable on account of the exception- 

 ally high arched cap which the workers put on when the larva 

 is sealed up. This then gives to drones a greater amount of 

 variation in the room provided for their growth while in the 

 plastic state. 



A bee larva will grow until it fills the cell in which it is placed 

 and the young bee which emerges will be the size of the cell 

 from which it came, within certain limits. This is shown in the 

 production of queens by the modern methods of queen rearing 

 used in apiculture. A young worker larva, less than one day 

 old, is lifted from its cell and put into a cell cup of queen size. 

 The workers complete this cup and form a queen cell and the 

 larva in this cell grows to a much larger size than would be 

 possible if it had remained in its original cell. Once in a while 

 the bees will attempt to make a queen from a drone larva and 

 while, of course, this is a failure yet the result is a very large 

 drone. Generally, however, the drone under these conditions 

 dies before reaching the imago stage. These facts show that the 

 growth of an individual is limited by the size of the cell and also 

 undoubtedly by the amount of food received during the unsealed 

 larval stage. Then it follows that since the cells from which 



o 



drones hatch vary from one fifth of an inch to over one fourth of 

 an inch in width, while those from which workers hatch are 

 quite uniform, that the variation in size will be^ considerably 

 greater for drones than for workers. 



This supposition is further strengthened by some of the facts 



