SOCIALES— HONEY-BEE 6/ 



larvae nurtured in them, the first one that is developed into a 

 perfect queen goes round and stings the royal nymphs to death 

 while they are still in their cells. The production of drones is 

 supposed to depend chiefly on the nature of the egg laid by the 

 queen ; it being considered that an unfertilised egg is deposited 

 for this purpose. There is still some doubt on this point, how- 

 ever. Though there is no doubt that drones are produced in 

 great numbers from unfertilised eggs, yet there is not evidence 

 that they cannot also be produced from fertilised eggs.^ The 

 drone-cells are somewhat larger than the ordinary worker-cells, 

 but this is probably not of much import, and it is said tliat tlie 

 larvae intended to produce drones receive a greater proportion of 

 pap than worker-larvae do : about twenty-four days are required 

 to produce a drone from the egg. 



From this sketch it will be seen that the production of the 

 worker (or third sex, as it is improperly called, the workers 

 being really females atrophied in some points and specially 

 developed in others) is dependent on the social life, in so far at 

 any rate as the special feeding is concerned. There is good 

 reason for supposing that A. mellifica has been kept in a state of 

 domestication or captivity for an enormous period of time ; and 

 this condition has probably led to an increase of its natural 

 peculiarities, or perhaps we should say to a change in them to 

 suit a life of confinement. This is certainly the case in regard 

 to swarming, for this process takes place with comparative 

 irregularity in Ai^is mellifica in a wild condition. The killing of 

 superfluous queens is also probably a phenomenon of captivity, 

 for it varies even now in accordance with the numbers of the 

 colony. It is interesting to notice that in confinement when a 

 swarm goes from the hive it is the old queen that accompanies 

 it, and this swarm as a rule settles down near the old hive, so 

 that the queen-bee being already fertilised, the new swarm and 

 its subsequent increase are nothing but a division of the old 

 hive, the total products of the two having but a single father 

 and mother. When a second swarm goes off from a hive it is 

 accompanied by a young queen, who frequently, perhaps, in the 

 majority of cases, is unfertilised ; this swarm is apt to fly for 

 long distances, so that the probability of cross-fertilisation is 



^ See Perez, Act. Soc. Bordeaux, xxxiii. 1880, p. Ixv. ; and Cameron, Tr. Soc. 

 Glasgoiu, n. s. ii. 1889, p. 194. 



