46 HOW TO KEEP BEES 



should be taken to prevent colonies from becoming 

 queenless. In case, through carelessness, a colony 

 is thus victimised it will usually refuse to accept a 

 queen, though sometimes it may be induced to accept 

 a capped queen cell. If this is not successful, the 

 combs, with the bees adhering, should be removed 

 to an empty hive nearby, placing a frame of brood 

 containing a queen cell, if possible, and a frame or 

 two of foundation in the old hive. The workers, 

 coming back from the field, will enter their hive and 

 the moved comb will soon be deserted by all except 

 the laying worker; she, with her characteristic 

 fatuity, will remain on the deserted combs, laying 

 eggs until she dies of exhaustion. A surer remedy 

 than this, but a more troublesome one, is to unite 

 this colony with another, or to scatter the combs 

 from the victimised hive, bees and all, among other 

 colonies of the apiary; meanwhile giving the depleted 

 hive a frame or two of good brood, with a queen cell, 

 if possible, so that the bees that return to it will 

 find normal conditions. What happens to the lay- 

 ing worker when she finds herself in a colony with 

 a queen, we do not know. Probably, if she persists 

 in laying eggs, she is killed ; possibly she forsakes her 

 evil ways, and returns to the straight and narrow 

 path of respectable citizenship. 



We do not understand why laying workers are 

 developed. Some have claimed that too much royal 

 jelly was given them when larvae ; and some, that after 

 a colony is queenless, the jelly is fed to workers and 

 thus develops them so they are able to lay eggs. 



