CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF COMMON INSECTS 359 



Swarming. — As the queen lays about 1000 eggs per day a time 

 arrives when a prosperous colony tends to be overcrowded. The 

 workers then rear new queens and the old queen collects several thou- 

 sand workers about her and emerges to found a new colony. This phe- 

 nomenon is known as swarming. Frequently a hive may swarm twice 

 or thrice during a favorable season. The expert apiarist may save 

 much worry and trouble by inducing swarming artificially. 



Fertilization. — The queen is fertilized by a drone during the nuptial 

 flight, when her spermathecae are filled with spermatozoa. She usually 

 mates but once, and the sperms are sufficiently numerous to fertilize 

 the thousands of eggs which produce workers. The queen may also 

 lay some, relatively few, unfertilized eggs which produce drones. 



Characteristics of the more Important Races of Honey Bees — {Dr. E 



F. Phillips) 



GROUP FORMICOIDEA (ANTS) 



Family Formicid^ 



(Consult Howard's Insects, Wheeler's Ants and Formicoidca in Hymenoptera of 



Connecticut) 



Three classes of individuals occur in an ant colony — males, 

 females, and wingless workers, the last being undeveloped females. 



