238 BEE-KEEPING 



come in another. Each worker bee is armed with a sting, 

 with which to protect its home, but the skilful bee-keeper 

 learns to control his bees so that they do not often use 

 their stings. 



The Workers, the Queen, and the Drone The 

 worker bee is the smallest bee in the hive. It takes the 

 little scales of wax that form between the rings on 

 the abdomen and makes the comb. The oil which is 

 made from the food eaten by the bee finds its way through 

 the bee's body and hardens into waxy scales. The bee 

 plucks a wax scale from its abdomen with its leg-pinchers 

 and passes it forward to its mouth, where it is chewed. 

 The wax is then ready to be made into the six-sided cells 

 which make the comb. The workers also fill the cells 

 with the honey which they make from the nectar of the 

 flowers. The cells are not all of the same size. Some 

 are made for holding honey; others in which the queen 

 lays eggs, are sometimes used also to hold honey or 

 pollen, often called beebread. This beebread is a sticky 

 mass that the bees make by moistening the pollen which 

 they gather from flowers. It is of various colors and 

 somewhat sweetish to the taste. 



The queen bee lays her eggs in three separate sets of 

 cells, placing one egg in each cell. In the small cells, 

 she lays eggs that are to become the workers ; in the cells 

 next larger, she lays the eggs that will become drones 

 when they are hatched. Finally, she lays a few eggs in 

 some large cells built on the edge of the comb. These 

 are called royal cells, and the eggs in them may hatch 

 queens if they are furnished with the proper kind of food 

 by the workers. 



