EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART X. 673 



young worker larva soon after it hatches from the egg, and, by giving It 

 special food, royal jelly, all during its larval life, and, by constructing 

 for it a special cell, make of the otherwise worker larva a fully developed 

 queen. This it is that the workers of a colony do when they are pre- 

 paring to swarm. Several young worker larvae are chosen as the material 

 for queen-rearing, generally located near the margin of the comb. The 

 workers now begin to feed these chosen larvas an extra amount of food, 

 and at the same time the sides of the cells containing them are remod- 

 eled and enlarged by the destruction of surrounding cells. The queen (or 

 royal) cell is nearly horizontal at the top, like the other cells of the comb, 

 and projects beyond them; later the workers construct another portion 

 of the cell into which the queen larva moves. This is an acorn-shaped 

 cell placed vertically on ihe comb, about as large as three ordinary cells. 

 As the cell is being built the queen larva continues to grow until the 

 time comes for her to be sealed up and enter the pupa state. Although 

 it takes the worker twenty-one days to complete its development, the queen 

 passes through all the stages and reaches a considerably larger size in 

 but sixteen days. 



Before leaving the subject of the raising of queens, it might be well 

 to state that if, for some reason, a queen is killed in the hive, or by 

 chance gets lost, the workers can at any time replace her by the same 

 method, provided, of course, they have worker larvae on which to work. 

 In the same way they will replace or supersede an old queen when she 

 begins to show signs of decreased power of egg-laying, so that this 

 peculiar performance is not characteristic of swarming only. 



In the swarming season, at about the time the new queens are ready 

 to leave their cells, the old queen leaves the hive and takes with her a 

 part of the workers, this being known as "swarming." This generally 

 takes place in the morning of a warm, pleasant day. It may as well be 

 confessed that we know very little about this remarkable instinct of the 

 bee. In the first place, under ordinary conditions, the old queen would 

 not allow queen cells to be constructed in her colony, nor has anyone 

 told us why she allows it now. Neither do we know what starts the actual 

 swarming, nor which bees, workers or queen, first set the hive in motion. 

 We are equally ignorant of what is the thing which compels certain bees 

 to leave with the old queen and why the others stay in the old hive with 

 the young queen. Since the prevention or control of swarming is such 

 an important problem in practical apiculture, the value of research along 

 this line is evident. Since our original hive has now divided, let us 

 follow the swarm with the old queen and later return to the old hive to 

 observe the actions of that. 



In the hands of a beekeeper the departing swarm may be put into 

 another hive, provided he wishes to increase the number of his colonies; 

 but in nature the swarm will find an old hollow tree or some similar 

 place in which to establish itself. The bees, before leaving their old 

 hive, fill themselves with honey until the abdomen is greatly distended, 

 and for this reason it is not necessary for them to collect nectar for a 

 day or two, for they have other work to do. Some of the bees begin to 

 clean up the new quarters and get it fit for occupancy; but most of them 

 43 



