SOME STRANGE MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS 281 



nurse-bees. These superfed babies cease feeding at about 

 the fifth day, and each spins for herself a silken vestment 

 in which to undergo the pupal state. This done, the 

 door of each cell is sealed up with pollen. During the 

 following sixteen days strange transformations take 

 place : the queen that is to be is taking shape. But the 

 cradle now becomes a prison, for at the end of the sixteenth 

 day each of the four or five young queens begins to clamour 

 for release. But this cannot be, for such as succeeded in 

 emerging would immediately be slain by the reigning 

 queen. A small hole is bored through the roof of the cell, 

 and through this each is fed, and a close guard is kept 

 night and day to ensure that they shall not emerge till 

 the moment is ripe. Soon each captive begins to gnaw 

 away the roof of her prison chamber, and as rapidly 

 more material is placed by her guards on the outer surface. 

 Not until the old queen leaves the hive with thousands 

 of her daughters to " swarm " and found a new colony 

 will freedom be allowed ; and then only to one. The 

 rest must remain till the new queen either also " swarms," 

 or returns from her nuptial flight, and in this case all will 

 be slaughtered in their cramped quarters, unable to resist. 

 But what of the drone ? He, as has already been 

 mentioned, is reared in a larger cradle than that of his 

 sisters — save such as are destined to be queens — and for 

 the first three days of his life is fed on " bee-milk " of a 

 special kind and more generous quality than that of his 

 worker-sisters, the Cinderellas of the hive ; but this 

 generous diet is diminished at the end of three days, 

 when a mixture of honey and pollen is given him. In 

 about three weeks or rather more he emerges, a great, 

 lazy drone, and for a fortnight more he wanders about 

 the hive alternately soliciting bee-milk from his sisters 



