The Honey "Bee 



1395 



continuity of the colony and race ; however, additional importance 

 is attached to the queen through the fact that unless she is young 

 and vigorous, her colony cannot excel in production or profit. 





Fig. 49. Queen 



Fig. 50. Worker 



Fig. 51. Drone 



THE QUEEN 



With a colony in normal condition, the queen, a fully developed 

 female, lays all the eggs for the maintenance and increase of the 

 colony. Under favorable conditions, she has been known to lay 

 3,000 eggs per day at the height of the season, equalling her own 

 weight, which seems almost incredible to many people. 



The production of the apiary, and hence the profits realized, 

 depend largely on the energy of this main spring of the colony. 

 It, therefore, behooves the apiarist to bend every effort to secure 

 this " sine qua non " to the highest success. The honey producer 

 knows there is great variation in the yield of individual colonies, 

 and should the indifferent ones be made as efficient as the best, his 

 profits would be largely increased. 



All queens should be 

 bred from the very best 

 stock obtainable, and 

 mated to an equally good 

 strain of drones. To 

 maintain the requisite 

 vigor and lessen the 

 chances of supersedure, 

 no queen over two years 



Fig. 52. Egg of a queen bee highly- 

 magnified 



