30 MANUAL OF APICULTURE. 



not undertaken until it lias passed about two weeks in the care of 

 brood. The worker then takes up also wax secretion, if honey is to be 

 capped over or combs built, although old bees can and do to a certain 

 extent engage in wax production. 



THE DRONE. 



Eggs left unfertilized produce drones and require twenty-four days 

 from the time they are deposited until the perfect insect appears. They 

 are normally deposited in the larger-sized horizontal cells, and when 

 the latter are sealed, the capping is more convex as well as lighter-colored 

 than that of worker brood, which is brown and nearly flat. 



The fact that drones develop from unfertilized eggs is to be noted as 

 having an important practical bearing in connection with the intro- 

 duction of new strains of a given race or of new races of bees into an 

 apiary. From a single choice home-bred or imported mother, young 

 queens of undoubted purity of blood may b reared for all of the colo- 

 nies of the apiary, and since the mating of these young queens does 

 not aifect their drone progeny, thereafter only drones of the desired 

 strain or race and pure in blood will be produced, rendering, therefore, 

 the pure mating of future rearings fairly certain if other bees are not 

 numerous within a mile or two. Eventually also all of the colonies 

 will be changed to the new race and without admixture of impure 

 blood, provided always that the young queens be reared from mothers 

 of pure blood mated to drones of equal purity,, 



