68 CLASSIFICATION, PHYSIOLOGY, ETC. 



very sensitive, and will attack and sting their keeper 

 or other persons disturbing them, more readily than 

 those having a prolific queen. 



Cells resembling acorn cups with the mouth down- 

 wards, (called false queen cells) are always built by 

 queenless swarms. Such are also found in hives 

 fully organized, and it requires a practiced eye to de- 

 tect the difference. If queenless, they are found 

 usually in clusters on the ends of the combs ; while if 

 having a queen, there is but an occasional one, and 

 they are to be found on the sides or edge of the 

 comb. 



Retaining drones late in the season, after other 

 hives have destroyed them, is an indication, though 

 not a positive one, of queenlessness ; for good hives 

 are occasionally known to retain a few through the 

 winter, but they are always killed during the first 

 days of flying, in the spring. 



It is stated by different authors that the bees of a 

 queenless hive will not carry in pollen. (They say 

 the bees have no use for it, that it is used for the one 

 purpose only of feeding the young.) 



The assertion however, is not well founded, for I 

 have invariably found them carrying in and storing 

 it as long as a small cluster of bees remained, or till 

 the last stages of its existence. When they fail to do 

 so, it is because there is no pasturage from which to 

 gather it. 



Mr. Quinby is of the same opinion. 



