50 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



as I once noticed in a nest of B. terrestris. A few 

 males are often produced with the later broods of 

 workers, especially if the queen is not prolific, but 

 workers are seldom produced with the males and 

 queens, and such as do appear have probably failed 

 to develop into queens through insufficient feeding. 

 I have never known a queen to be produced among 

 the regular batches of workers, but in some of my 

 nests that I fed liberally large workers like those 

 that are produced in the later broods were produced 

 in the early broods. It seems, therefore, that an 

 abundant supply of food is not sufficient to make a 

 female larva develop into a queen, but that it may 

 also be necessary for the larva to be from an egg 

 that has been laid late in the queen's life. Also the 

 possibility that the development of a queen instead 

 of a worker is the result of a slight differentiation in 

 the food given to the larva must not be precluded. 

 With the honey-bee, if the female larva is fed entirely 

 on " royal jelly," a rich milky food prepared in the 

 chyle stomach of the bee, it develops into a queen ; 

 but if it is weaned on the third day, and thereafter 

 has honey added to its food, it becomes a worker. 

 With the humble-bee, although no such differentia- 

 tion in feeding is observable, and the queen larva 

 appears to be fed like the worker larva on a gruel 

 of honey and pollen, prepared in the honey-sac, it is 

 not improbable that the composition of this food 

 is slightly altered, when the colony has reached a 

 certain stage, by, for instance, a greater activity in 

 some of the salivary glands, of which no less than 



