278 AGRICULTURE 



workers may leave the old hive with the new queen and 

 found another colony. This is called swarming. 



The work of the queen. The queen bee is very care- 

 fully cared for by the workers, for upon her depends the 

 very life of the colony. They feed her and do everything 

 else possible for her comfort and safety. The reason for 

 all of this anxiety about the queen is that she alone lays 

 all of the many thousands of eggs for the colony. Her 

 strength is saved for that work. 



The bee nursery. The worker bees build the honey- 

 comb in which the honey is stored and in which the young 

 bees are reared. Separate combs are used for these two 

 purposes. While the honey is stored for food, the young 

 bees are not fed upon it directly. They are not brought 

 up in the cells with the honey. This is how it is possible 

 to have the fine solid combs of pure honey. 



When a comb is prepared for the rearing of the young, 

 the queen is taken to it by the workers. She places one 

 egg in the bottom, or rather in the inner end, of each cell. 

 With that her work is done. But during the summer 

 time, she may have to lay several hundreds or even thou- 

 sands of eggs every day. Whether the young bee is to 

 become a worker, a drone, or a queen depends largely 

 upon the kind of cell in which the egg is placed and also 

 upon the kind of food that the young bee is fed. The 

 workers are developed in the ordinary sized, horizontal 

 cells. The drone cells are much larger, but also horizontal, 

 and the eggs deposited in these are supposed to be in- 

 fertile. The workers can produce a queen when they 

 desire by forming a larger vertical cell, placing in it an 



