344 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



the queen cells. If the colony is not too populous, the first queen 

 to emerge tears down the other queen cells and kills the develop- 

 ing queens. If a second swarm is imminent, the workers see to it 

 that the other queen cells are protected. In about a week after 

 emerging, the first queen flies from the hive and mates with one 

 of the drones in the air. Mating usually occurs but once, after 

 which the mating drone dies. The mated queen returns to 

 the hive and after about two days starts laying eggs, repeating 

 the routine of her predecessor. The spermatozoa received 

 from the drone are stored in the spermatheca, which is a small sac 

 opening into the oviduct. As the eggs pass the opening of the 

 spermatheca, spermatozoa may be released or not. Fertilized 

 eggs, those which have been penetrated by spermatozoa, develop 

 either into workers or queens depending upon the kind of food 

 given during the larval period. If a virgin queen is lost on her 

 flight, or if the colony for any reason becomes queenless, it may 

 happen that a worker will start to lay eggs, though normally 

 workers do not lay eggs. Such eggs develop into drones, just as 

 the unfertilized eggs laid by the queen do under normal condi- 

 tions. Queens that have exhausted their supply of spermatozoa 

 lay only drone eggs. The average number of eggs laid daily 

 during the breeding season by a single queen is about 900. The 

 maximum on any single day may reach 2,000. 



Life in a colony of honeybees is ordered along rather definite 

 lines. The function of the queen is to lay eggs, of the drones to 

 produce spermatozoa for fertilizing the eggs, while to the workers 

 falls the burden of caring for the entire colony, including the 

 rearing of the young and the building and guarding of the nest. 

 If the colony as a whole be compared with an organism in the 

 ordinary sense, the queen and drones represent the germ cells 

 of the organism, and the workers the somatic or body cells, 

 which carry on the routine metabolic activities of the body. 



The length of life of the queen is bound up with her ability to 

 lay eggs for the reason that when she stops laying she is super- 

 seded by a young queen reared by the workers. The queen lives 

 on the average from three to four years. Drones make their 

 appearance in a hive after a considerable number of workers have 

 been produced and conditions become crowded. Drones begin 

 to fly about a week after emerging. The drone mating with a 

 young queen in the nuptial flight dies after copulation. Other 



