322 



STATE BOAED OF AGEICULTURE. 



that only once, it might be asked why nature v.'as so improvident as to decree 

 hundreds of drones to an apiary or colony, whereas a score would suffice as 

 well. Yet nature takes cognizance of the importance of the queen, and as she 

 goes forth amidst the myriad dangers of the outer world, it is safest and best 

 that her stay abroad be not protracted ; hence the superabundance of drones, 

 — especially under natural conditions, isolated in forest homes, where ravenous 

 birds are ever on the alert for insect game, — is most wise and provident. Arti- 

 ficial circumstances require no such conditions, nor are they then enforced. 



THE QUEEN. 



;-:^The queen (Fig. 7) is the true mother bee, or in other words a perfectly 

 developed female, with large, full-formed ovaries, which occu- 

 py the larger jiart of her abdomen. These organs (Fig. 8), 

 one on either side of the back, are multitubular, each consisting 

 of many tu1:»es (Fig. 8, a a), in which grow the eggs, for the 

 eggs of all animals are a growth, not a secretion. From each 

 Fig. 7. ovary leads a special duct (b, Fig. 8), which ducts finally unite 



into the common oviduct (c, Fig, 8), through which all the eggs pass. By the 



Fig. 8. 



side of this oviduct is a little pea-shaped sock {e, Fig. 8), called the sperma- 

 theca, which, during copulation or mating, is filled with the seminal or male 

 fluid. About this sock are voluntary muscles, so that the queen can bring the 

 fluid, if she desires, in contact with the eggs as they pass. This, of course, is 

 the most important structural peculiarity of the queen, as this makes her a 

 female, but she has other differences worthy of mention : she is longer than 

 either drone or worker, being over seven-eighths of an inch long, and with her 

 long, ta2:)ering abdomen is not without real grace and beauty. The queen's 

 tongue (Fig. 9) is short, her jaws weak, eyes like the neuter's, wings short, 

 hardly more than half the length of the abdomen. She has no pollen-baskets, 

 but possesses a sting which resembles that of the hnmble-bee, in being curved 

 (see d, Fig. 8), yet, strange as it may appear, she can seldom be induced to 

 make use of it. I have often tried to provoke a queen's anger, but never with 

 any evidence of success. 



The queen, like the neuters, is developed from an impregnated egg, which of 

 course could only come from a fertile queen. These eggs are not placed in a 

 horizontal cell, but in one specially prepared for their reception. These queen 

 cells (Fig. 11) arc usually built on the edge of, or around an opening in the 



