8 SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 



In six or eight days after she returns to the hive from her mating-tour 

 she will begin to lay and keep up her colony of bees. While she is subject 

 to death at any time, she may live to be the mother of the colony for four 

 or six years. 



Though there is plenty of honey in the cells which the queen crawls 

 over, yet she is mostly fed by her daughters. Especially is this true during 

 a honey-flow or when the bees are breeding fast or rearing young bees 

 rapidly. They will keep her fed up to the highest egg-laying point possible. 

 It seems that worker-bees can not show their affection for their mother 

 enough. As she crawls around over the comb they move out of her way and 

 give her passing room ; and as soon as she halts to rest, one more will offer 

 her food, and others will gather up around her in a loving manner, giving 

 her loving touches and strokes. 



Queen and Retinue 



The queen is the only perfect female bee in the hive. The large amount 

 of rich food which is deposited around her, and which she consumes while 

 in the cell, develops her ovaries, and therefore she is a perfectly developed 

 bee. 



We will next consider the worker-bee, or the bees which gather all the 

 honey, build all the comb, carry in all the pollen and water, feed all the 

 young, and perform all the work about the colony except the egg-laying, 

 which the queen does. 



Worker-bees are reared in the smaller size of cells on the comb; but 

 before the queen lays eggs in them they are cleaned out and polished by the 

 bees ; then the queen, making trips over the comb, looking for cells to deposit 

 her eggs in, finds them thus made ready for her, when she deposits eggs in 

 themi In three days the eggs are hatched, and for the next three days the 

 tiny larva is fed as they would feed one to develop a queen; but at the end 

 of three days they change the food of the larva and give it much coarser diet 

 (a milky-looking substance), then feed it on this food for three days more. 

 As it lies coiled up in the bottom of the cell, the nurse-bees are constantly 



