118 HYMENOPTERA. 



cells, which are placed on the edge of the comb, and in these 

 the queen-larvsB are fed with rich and choice nourishment. 

 As soon as the first of the new brood of queens is excluded 

 from its cell, which it indicates by a peculiar buzzing noise, the 

 old queen deserts the nest, carrying away with her a part of the 

 swarm, and thus forms a new colonj'. The recently excluded 

 queen then takes its marriage flight high in the air with a 

 drone, and on its return undertakes the management of the 

 hive, and the duty of laying eggs. When another queen is 

 disclosed, the same process of forming a new colon}- goes on. 

 When the supply of young queens is exhausted, the workers 

 fall upon the drones and destroy them without mercy. The 

 first brood of workers live about six weeks in summer, and 

 then give way to a new brood. Mr. J. G. Desborough states 

 that the maximum period of the life of a worker is eight months. 

 The queens are known to live five years, and during their whole 

 life lay more than a million eggs (V. Berlepsch). Langstroth 

 states that "during the height of the breeding season, she 

 will often, under favorable circumstances, lay from 2,000 to 

 3,000 eggs a day." According to Von Siebold's discovery 

 only the queens' and workers' eggs are fertilized by sperm- 

 cells stored in the receptaculum seminis, and these she can 

 fertilize at will, retaining the power for four or five 3'ears, 

 as the muscles guarding the duct leading from this sperm-bag 

 are subject to her will. Drone eggs are laid by unfertilized 

 queen-bees, and in some cases even by worker-bees. This last 

 fact has been confirmed by the more recent observations of 

 Mr. Tegetmeier, of London. 



Principal Leitch, according to Tegetmeier, has suggested the 

 theory that a worker egg may develop a queen, if transferred 

 into a queen-cell. "It is well known that bees, deprived of 

 their queen, select several worker-eggs, or very young larvse, 

 for the purpose of rearing queens. The cells in which these 

 eggs are situated are lengthened out and the end turned down- 

 ward." He suggests that the development into a queen was 

 caused by the increased temperature of the queen-cell, above 

 that of the worker-cells. 



But Messrs. F. Smith and Woodbury (Proceedings of the 

 Entomological Society of London, January 2, 1862) support F. 



