December, '22] Phillips: queen and drone self feeding 431 



The temporary lighting of the room caused both the drones and worker 

 bees to become more active, and this in turn perhaps shortened the 

 length of life to a small degree. 



(1) Drones without food : — ^A cage containing 170 drones and 3 worker 

 bees was placed in the dark room, and was provided with a bottle contain- 

 ing water, but the bees were given no food. One worker died the first 

 day and the other two died the second day. The death rate of the 

 drones is shown in the accompanying table. The average length of 

 life of these drones was 2.5294 =t 0.0499 days. The last drone died on the 

 fifth day. (o- = 0.9652 ±0.0353; C=38.16). 



(2) Drones with cane sugar solution: — A cage containing 144 drones 

 and two worker bees was placed in the room at the same time. These were 

 given a bottle feeder containing a saturated solution of cane sugar 

 (sucrose C.P.). One worker died on the second day and the other on 

 the fourth day. The death rate of the drones is shown in the accompany- 

 ing table. The average length of life of the drones was 4.9722 ±0.1 176 

 days. The last drone died on the tenth day. (cr = 2.0915 ±0.0831; 

 C = 42.06). 



It is quite evident from the figures given that drones are able to take 

 food from a bottle feeder, since the average length of life is double, 

 within the limits of the probable errors, in the case of the drones provided 

 with food. Since the last drone in those fed lived six days after the last 

 worker died, there can be no question as to the possibility that the two 

 workers in this cage fed all the drones. The condition of the living 

 drones in the two cages was quite different also. Those without food 

 were exceedingly sluggish at the end of the first day, while in the cage 

 where food was provided they were quite active until almost all of them 

 were dead. This difference which was quite evident during the experi- 

 ment can not be expressed in figures. 



To determine whether queenbees are also able to feed themselves, the 

 following experiments were tried. One queenbee (No. 2) was placed 

 alone in a small introducing cage at 11 :00 a. m. on June 24. On top of 

 this cage there was placed a small bottle feeder containing a solution of 

 cane sugar (sucrose C.P.), saturated at room temperature (then 24.6° C). 

 This queen lived until 1 :30 p.m. July 4, the temperature of the laboratory 

 room during the interval being quite high. On the same date a queen 

 (No. 1) was placed in a similar cage with nothing given except water and 

 she was dead the following morning at 9:00 a.m. On June 29 at 2:00 

 P.M. another queen (No. 3) was placed in a similar cage with water only 

 and she was found dead at 7:00 a.m. the following morning. On June 

 29 at 2:00 p.m. another queen (No. 4) was placed in a cage with water 



