THE ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS 73 



motion with their wings, thus setting up a current which 

 provides air and helps ripen the honey by evaporating the 

 water in it. Finally, as every one knows, they are the defend- 

 ers of the hive, and by their great numbers and formidable 

 stings they constitute a body-guard of no mean pretensions. 



The name " queen bee " is misleading, if it suggests any con- 

 trol or management of the affairs of the hive. She is carefully 

 guarded by the workers, but that is on account of her impor- 

 tance to them as the only fertile female in the community, 

 though they can, as we shall see, produce other queens from 

 eggs which were destined for workers, if necessity arises. As 

 far as having any power to rule is concerned, she is, in reality, 

 ruled by the workers. It is her function to lay the eggs from 

 which all the other members develop. Those eggs destined 

 to become workers are laid in cells of ordinary size ; those 

 which are to become males are placed in slightly larger cells ; 

 while those which are to become queens, though differing in 

 no way at first from those which produce workers, are placed 

 in special " royal " cells, much larger and of an irregular 

 shape. They are, of course, few in number compared with 

 the others. 



When the eggs hatch, all the larvae are fed for several 

 days on a jelly-like substance consisting of regurgitated 

 food mixed with a secretion from glands in the heads of 

 the workers and poured out from their mouths. After this 

 the workers and males receive "bee-bread," a mixture of 

 pollen and honey, while the young queens are continued on 

 their diet of elaborated material, " royal jelly," furnished by 

 the workers. When for any reason a hive loses its queen, the 

 workers proceed to break down the walls between three adja- 

 cent cells containing worker larvse, kill two of the occupants, 

 and bring the third to maturity as a queen by the use of royal 

 jelly. The first eggs laid in the spring produce workers ; the 

 males are produced from unfertilized eggs laid by the queen. 



