S The UnJnts of ihr Uoneyhee 



way dictates what shall take place in the hive. The 

 eggs are laid in the bottom of the hexagonal cells, 

 being attached by one end to the center of the cell. 

 The first eggs laid develop into workers, and are 

 deposited in cells one-fifth of an inch across. As the 

 colony increases in size by the hatching-out of these 

 workers, and as the stores of honey and pollen in- 

 crease, the queen begins to lay in larger cells measur- 

 ing one-fourth of an inch, and from the eggs laid in 

 these cells drones (or males) develop. The size of the 

 cell does not determine the sex, as will be explained 

 later ; but the queen almost invariably lays the worker 

 eggs in the smaller cells, and drone eggs in the larger 

 ones. As these male eggs develop and hatch, drones 

 begin to appear in the colony, generally about the first 

 of May in temperate climates. 



The eggs do not develop directly into adult bees, as 

 might be inferred from what has just been said; but 

 after three days there hatches from the ^gg a small 

 white worm-like larva. For several days the larvse are 

 fed by the workers, and the amount of food consumed 

 is truly remarkable. The larva grows rapidly until it 

 fills the entire cell in which it lives. The workers then 

 cover the cell with a cap of wax, and at the same time 

 the larva inside spins a delicate cocoon under the cap. 

 The worker brood can at once be diotinguished from 

 the drone brood by the fact that the workers place a 

 flat cap over worker brood and a high arched cap over 

 drone brood; and this is often a great help to the bee- 

 keeper in enabling him to determine at once what kind 

 of brood any hive contains. Twenty-one days from 

 the time the egg is laid the young worker-bee emerges 

 from its cell, liaving gone through some wonderful 

 transformalions during the time it was sealed up, this 



