THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



33 



Diversity of Size. 



Deviations in size from the ordinary stand- 

 ard are common among bees, bnt are more fre- 

 quontlj observed among qncens and drones 

 than among workers. We shall first notice those 

 among drones, which are three-fold — large, me- 

 dium, and small. Large drones are those bred 

 in drone cells, proper, and arc such as we 

 commonly see about hives in summer. Medi- 

 um sized drones are those bred in worker cells 

 covered with concave or meniscus-shaped caps. 

 The Germans call them "buckelbrut" — liump- 

 brood—hom. the humped appearances of the 

 worker comb, in which they are bred. They 

 are usually of the full length of ordinary drones, 

 though considerably more slender, the narrow- 

 ness of the worker cell preventing the full late- 

 ral developement of the embryo insect, while 

 the concave cap permits it to attain its normal 

 length. Small drones are such as do not ex- 

 ceed the workers in length, though they are 

 somewhat thicker. I can account for their ori- 

 gin only by supposing that the workers some- 

 times err when sealing up worker larvse, giv- 

 ing them flat covers instead of concave. The 

 curvature of the cap is scarcely perceptible, 

 and seems to be produced, not by design of the 

 bee, but by pressure iVom within, the round 

 head of the nascent drone being forced up flush 

 against it, causing it to bulge upward. This flat 

 covering of the cell represses the longitudinal 

 growth of the insect, and limits its length to 

 that of an ordinary worker. I have, says Ber- 

 lepsch, occasionally found them fully developed 

 and fully mature, yet ('ead in their cells, the 

 head appearing to have lieen so firmly pressed 

 against the inside of tlio cover, that the ripe 

 drone was unable to use his mandibles to cut 

 his way out, and died literally of starvation. 

 These drones are generally met with in the 

 spring, rarely in summer; at times only one 

 here and there in the cells of a worker comb, 

 and again four or five clustered together. So 

 deceptive is oft-times the appearance of these 

 misapplied cells, that it is not till their inmates 

 are seen emerging that they are ascertained to 

 be drones. An examination of the neighbor- 

 ing cells usually reveals the fact that they too 

 are similarly misused, and that a batch of dimi- 

 uiitive drones is maturing, to the ruin of a colo- 

 ny which needed strengthening by the acces- 

 sion of a fresh generation of workers. 



"Only on one occasion," says Berlepsch, "did 

 I see these small drones make their appearance 

 in large numbers. In the summer of 185(3, I 

 observed a multitude of them issuing from a 

 populous colony, in a movable comb hive in 

 my aiiiary. I made an immediate examination, 

 and found there were at least five or six thous- 

 and such small drones present, with not less 

 than twice that number maturing in the cells. 

 Not a single worker was subsequently pro- 

 duced, though the queen had previously laid 

 worker eggs in abundance, and the brood was 

 as regularly and compactly stowed in their cells 

 as if it had proceeded from a healthy and highly 

 prolific normal queen. The only perceptible 

 dilTcreuce was in the slight curvature, or bulge, 



of the cover. "Kie queen was marching about 

 on one of the combs with stately step. She 

 was large, vigorous, and very fertile, dropping 

 eggs while I was examining her. I can only 

 account for this extraordinary case, on the sup- 

 position that from some unknown cause orcasu- 

 ality, the qiieen suddenly lost her ability to lay 

 worker eggs; and that the workers, accustomed 

 to cap appropriately a large number of worker 

 cells daily, continued to do so from habit, even 

 after the queen became an unconscious drone 

 egg layer. The drone brood in the worker cells 

 was thus inadvertently sealed over Avith flat 

 covers." 



Workers emerging from cells in which many 

 successive broods have been reared, are com- 

 monly somewhat smaller than those bred in 

 new combs, as the silken cocoons in which the 

 larvae envelope themselves preparatory to their 

 first transformation, adheres to tiie sides of the 

 cell when the mature bee leaves, and thus con- 

 tracts its diameter. Here the diff"erence is not 

 so great usually between the workers in the 

 same apiary as to be strikingly obvious. 



But occasionally very diminutive workers — 

 veritable Liliputians, in fact — have been seen in 

 considerable numbers in some colonies, being 

 at the same time fully as active and industrious 

 as, and seemingly more nimble than, those of 

 larger growth and developement. Berlepsch 

 saj^s he has casually seen them in his own api- 

 ary, though they were always few in number. 

 Mr. Lubiniecki states that, in iVugust, 1850, he 

 was surprised by the sudden appearance in one 

 of his hives of several thousand dwarf bees, 

 not larger thun the common house fly. Four 

 of these little creatures did not together equal 

 an ordinary v/orker in size. It was amusing to 

 see these diminutive busybodies bustling about 

 among their larger companions, seemingly as 

 intent as any others on houseliold cares. No 

 one could restrain his laughter on witnessing 

 their return from foraging excursions, with 

 miniature pellets of pollen on their attenuate 

 thighs, or on beholding their adroit and fear- 

 less resistance when attacked by marauders from 

 other apiaries. Small as they were they were 

 armed with stings like their full grown broth- 

 ers, and gallantly did they know iiow to wield 

 them. On examination Mr. Lubiniecki found 

 that they had been bred in a comb which had 

 broken loose from its moorings and settled 

 down on the bottom between two others, thus 

 partially compressing a large proportion of the 

 cells. 



Mr. Glas, in a communication to the Bienen- 

 zeituhg, says he had in 1858, a small and very 

 slender Italian queen which produced diminu- 

 tive workci-s exclusively, in worker cells of the 

 ordinary size. It was laughable to see these 

 Liliputian workers passing in and out of their 

 hives, with apparent anxious haste eager to ap- 

 propriate the spoils which a propitious season 

 and mild Aveathcr profferred in inofusion. It is 

 much to be regretted that Mr. Glas did not rear 

 young queens from the brood of her minature 

 majesty, and take the other measures needed to 

 perpetuate the dwarf race. Had he succeeded 

 in this, he would have facilitated the solutiou 



