284 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 



ers as a first swarm. The young queen arrives at maturity, is 

 fertilized in marriage flight, returns to the colony, kills the queen 

 pupas in the remaining cells, and reigns undisputed; or, if prevented 

 from this she leads out another colony before the maturity of a 

 second queen. If the queen dies, the workers enlarge the cell of 

 some young worker grub, and feed it with royal jelly, so that it 

 develops into a queen, and the affairs of the colony go on as 

 usual ; but if there are no brood cells, a bee community soon goes 

 to pieces on the loss of the queen. Division of labor is well marked 

 among bees; the queen-mother and ruler, the fathers, gentlemen 

 of leisure, and the workers ; some collecting honey, some secreting 

 wax and building cells, some nursing the brood, some attending 

 to the ventilation of the hive, as their active respiration tends to 

 raise the temperature and foul the air. Bees, silk-worms and the 

 cochineal insects, are the only representatives of the great group 

 of insects that are of much economic value. 



The collection of specimens is an interesting and valuable exer- 

 cise. A pint fruit jar two-thirds full of seventy-five per cent, alco- 

 hol will be a good receptacle for almost anything taken in the 

 field except moths and butterflies. They may be killed with 

 chloroform or cyanide. The cyanide bottle is perhaps the most 

 convenient, and may be made by placing several pieces of cyanide 

 over the bottom of a pint fruit jar, and just covering them with 

 plaster of paris. Insects shut up in the jar are soon killed ; after 

 which they can be transferred to folds of paper and packed in 

 boxes, or pinned in boxes. Great care is necessary in arranging 

 the legs and wings so that when dry the specimen shall look nat- 

 ural, be neat, and well preserved. 



