THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



283 



Physiology of the Honey Bee. 



To the student.of nature, a colony of bees 

 presents a scene of |tlie most lively interest. 



If we draw [from a hive a sheet of brood 

 comb, and look into the cells, we will find 

 small, ovoid-oblons bodies, slightly curved 

 and of a pearly white color attached to the 

 bottom of the cells by one extremity. These 



ITALIAN QUEEN. 



are the eggs from which young bees are to 

 be produced. If found in the coarser cells 

 which measure four to the inch a drone or 

 male bee will be hatched. 



The drones are not believed to be of any 

 use in the hive, unless they are sometimes 

 useful in keeping up tlie animal heat, but it 



UKAO OF TllK QUKEN. 



is not likely that there is any economy in 

 this, for the same weight of worker bees 

 would probably make just as much heat. 

 The sole office of the drone^ is the impregna- 

 tion of the queen, which takes place at a 

 distance from the hive, high up in the air. 

 As the one act of impregnation is effective 

 during the life of the queen, a single drone 



for each hive might seem enough. Instead 

 of this, there are usually hundreds, which 

 secures greater safety for the (jueen when 

 she goes on her bridal trij). The aim of the 

 apiarist, however, is to generally suppress 

 the large ])r()duction of dront's, which is 

 easily ddiic by keeping only a siiiall amount 

 of dr(in«' comb in the i)roo<l clianilier. 



If an egg is laid in one of the snuiUer cells 

 which measure five to the inch it will pro- 

 duce a worker. 



ITALIAN DRONE. ITALIAN WORKER 



HEAD OF THE I>KONE. 



The workers are undeveloped females, 

 and they are rightly named, as they do all 

 the work, cleaning the hive, feeding the 

 young, building the combs and gathei'ing 

 the honey and pollen. 



If an egg be found in a queen cell, or if 

 an egg is laid in a worker cell and the cell 

 nuich enlarged, the larva being bountifully 

 fed, a queen will be produced. 



The queen is the only fully developed fe- 

 male in the colony and in general only one 

 will be tound in each hive. She is rightly 

 named by the French, the "mother" bee, as 

 she is the mother of all; her only business 

 being to lay eggs, and during her time of 

 laying, which is most of the year, she does 

 not even feed herself, but is fed from time 

 to time by the workers. 



The three kinds of bees are readily dis- 

 tinguished by their general form, and the 

 magnified cut of a head of each, given here- 

 with, will show differences not so readily 

 noticed without the aid of the Tuicroscope. 



IIKAl) OF THK WUHKKK. 



The mandibles or biters are different and 

 the eyes of the drone occui)y most of its 

 head. The eye of the bee is compound, be- 

 ing made up of a great nun)ber of single 

 eyes, and in the forehead of each will be 

 seen three single eyes. These three single 

 eyes are round, and the facets or little eyes 

 in the compound eyes are six sided, probab- 

 ly on account of their compression by the 

 surrounding facets. 



