52 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



abundance of bee fodder, both in honey and pollen, results in the 

 «arly development of queens. In fact, queens are bred naturally 

 according to requirements. If there be a prospect of the brood 

 multiplying to the extent that swarming will be necessary, queens 

 are produced to meet this contingency. The brighter the prospects 

 for a large and continuous honey flow, the greater is the eagerness 

 among the bees to rear queens. One fertile qiieen i? required for 

 ■every swarm that issues forth from the parent hive. But, many 

 queens are developed where only one is required. The reason of 

 this is obvious. When it is remembered that every queen bee is 

 an enemy to every other queen bee, the destruction of queens must 

 be frequent. The fight is always to the finish. liTo matter what 

 the conditions are ; the developing queen larvae is as much an 

 object of hatred to the reigning queen as is a healthy fertile and 

 fully developed rival. 



The cell in which a queen bee is developed differs greatly from 

 that of the worker, not only in form, but in many other respects. 

 The cells in which workers are developed are sexangular tubes. 

 These are arranged horizontally, or nearly so, and form one com- 

 pact mass. Each of these six walls form a division between any two 

 cells. The arrangement and the massing of these cells form what is 

 familiarly termed brood comb or honey comb. How unlike these 

 are the queen cells. They are circular tubes that hang perpen- 

 dicularly from the workers' cells. Workers' cells are always built 

 of new material — there are occasional exceptions ; but queen cells 

 are always built of old material without exception. The workers' 

 cells are used for two purposes — nurseries and storage ; queens' 

 •cells as nurseries only. These are detailed contradistinctions suffi- 

 cient for my purpose. Note, if the queen lays an egg in a worker 

 cell, and within two or three days lays another in a queein cell, 

 naturally v.^e shall have a queen from the latter and a worker from 

 the former cell ; but if we apply art, and transpose those eggs, 

 we differentiate the entire creatures that are developed therefrom, 

 checking the evolution of a queen to a worker, reducing the period 

 by about five days by altering its surroundings and other condi- 

 tions ; but we extend the evolution of the worker to a queen by the 

 ;same time, from the same cause, and the same altered conditions. 

 The queen cells are, as a i"ule, built on the sides or base of the 

 brood comb. Occasionally a pop-hole — that is. the hole frequently 

 seen in honey comb or brood comb to permit the bees passing from 

 side to side of the comb— is enlarged, and the queen cell constructed 

 -on the upper edge thereof. And again, it is sometimes met with 



