212 ORGANISMS ILLUSTRATING BIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES 



development. The fully developed eggs pass out through the oviduct 

 into the vagina, where they are fertilized by sperm cells that were 

 placed in a sac called the seminal receptacle by a drone during the nup- 

 tial flight of the queen. The drones form the sperm cells in two testes, 

 but the sperms are stored in seminal vesicles from which, during mat- 

 ing, they are transferred to the seminal receptacles of the queen. 



The queen lays fertilized eggs in honeycomb cells of the worker 

 and unfertilized eggs in the larger drone cells. Just how she controls 



the actual fertilization 

 cocoon. .W-^ 



of the egg is not known. 

 According to Nolan,^ the 

 queen produces an 

 average of about 900 

 eggs a day during the 

 season, but may lay as 

 many as 2000 a day 

 during the period of 

 greatest honey making. 

 The queen places the 

 eggs in the cells by 

 means of an ovipositor, 

 which in the workers is 

 modified into a sting. 

 The latter structure is 

 made up of two darts, 

 closely applied to each other so as to form a tube through which 

 poison from a poison sac flows when the darts are forced out of their 

 sheath as the bee stings. Two different poisons are produced, one of 

 which is formic acid, the other an alkahne substance. Worker bees 

 usually die after stinging, as the sting with its attached parts, along 

 with some of the intestine, is left in the wound. The queen, which 

 also has a sting, uses it only in combat with other queens and does 

 not lose her life in its use. 



The life history of the bee is rather brief. Three days after fertiliza- 

 tion the egg hatches into a larva which lies in the cell surrounded by 

 a plentiful supply of "bee milk," a mixture of digested honey, pollen, 

 and saliva. After three days of feeding by the young "nurse" bees, 

 the larvae are given more and more undigested food. Drones are 



<^©er2 cell 



Cells of hive of honey bee. Note the stages in 

 development of worker. How many kinds of cells 

 are shown? (Read page 213.) 



1 Nolan, " Egg-laying Rate of the Queen Bee." Gleanings in Bee Culture, Vol. 52, 1924, pp. 428- 



431. 



