36 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



only cause that I know of for thus simulating the colour of the 

 cells is that the materials of which it is built are scraps removed 

 from those near to, and therefore the most handy for the purpose. 

 Almost any material seems capable of utilization. Bee-larvae 

 whilst developing, moult frequently — that is, cast off their skins 

 as they increase in size. These skin-casts and also grains of pollen, 

 with the wax scraped from the other cells, are the material from 

 which all queen-cells are made. Worker and drone cells are built 

 with new material, but are used for the rearing of many genera- 

 tions of brood. Queen-cells, on the contrary, are built of old 

 materials, and never used a second time. As a rule the worker 

 and drone-cells are complete when the queen deposits the egg 

 therein ; but not until the inmate enters the chrysalis stage is it 

 capped over. The queen-cell is built so as to accommodate the 

 "royal" larva as she grows, and the walls of the cell are enlarged 

 until the inmate enters the third form of development. Workers' 

 cells are pared down to the utmost limit, and their strength is 

 obtained, as will be seen by referring to the accompanying dia- 

 grams, by the form of their construction, and the massing of so 

 many together. Although so fragile in appearance they resist the 

 pressure of the thousands of bees that are continually clustering 

 thereon. The queen-cells, built as they are, semi-detached, are 

 exposed to a much greater strain than those of the workers. 

 During the whole time the queen larvae are developing the cells 

 are massed about by bees. The object of these clustering bees is 

 the supplying of royal jelly, and to keep a high temperature 

 around the inmate of the cell. If the queen-cells were as fragile 

 as the workers' they would collapse before the inmates were per- 

 fected. To overcome this risk, the constructing bees, so economic 

 in the building of other cells, heap on the material until the queen- 

 cell is forty or fifty times thicker than that of a worker's. But 

 that the instinct never forsakes them of saving material in all 

 they do is very easily demonstrated by noting both the natural and 

 artificial queen-cells in the accompanying diagrams. In each case 

 it will be observed that the cells under review appear to be a com- 

 pound of workers' cells. This appearance is caused by the thick 

 walls scooped out and pitted as to save material without loss of 

 strength. As a rule, queen cells are constructed singly, but not 

 unfrequently are they semi-detached, as in diagrams Nos. 3 and 

 4. At other times, when an extra good honey-flow is anticipated, 

 as many as seven or eight of these cells will be under construction 

 at one and the same time. Nos. 2 and 3 were taken from a hive 



