72 ELEMENTAKY AGEICULTUEE 



here they send out scouts to find new housekeeping 

 quarters; they also wi§h to make sure their queen 

 is with them. If they find she is not with them, 

 they return to the old hive and wait for her before 

 they start again. If the beekeeper is watching, he 

 makes ready a clean, fresh hive and either shakes 

 them in or places it where they will go in. 



The New Queen. The queen which takes her place 

 in the old hive comes from an egg laid in the queen's 

 cell. She has been fed with *^ royal jelly.'' This is 

 much richer food than that which is fed to the baby 

 bees which grow into the workers or drones, and it 

 makes a much larger bee. (Fig. 45-b.) 



Getting a New Queen. In case an accident hap- 

 pens to their old queen, the bees have a curious way 

 of getting a new one very soon. The drones choose 

 three cells which contain newly-hatched bees, they 

 knock out the partition cells, kill two of the bee- 

 babes, and feed the third on ^^ royal jelly." 



Dividing the Work. There are from thirty thou- 

 sand to forty thousand workers in a good strong 

 colony, and each bee has its own work to do. The 

 young bees build the comb, feed the newly-hatched 

 bees, and do general housework; those a little older 

 secrete wax and help their elder brothers to shape 

 pockets for storing the honey which these older bees 

 bring in. A queen may live four or five years, biit 

 the workers that are hatched in the spring, work so 

 hard that they often wear themselves out in forty 

 or fifty days. 



