INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS 3 2 5 



or less irregular in form, and vertical instead of horizontal; 

 they are attached usually to the lower edge of a comb or else 

 to one of the side edges. 



Other Facts. The entire organization of the honey bee 

 has been profoundly modified with reference to floral struc- 

 ture; the life of the bee is wrapped up in that of the flower. 

 The more important structural adaptations of bees in relation 

 to flowers have been described, as well as many of their sen- 

 sory peculiarities; there remain to be added, however, some 

 other items of interest, chosen from the many. 



A colony of bees in good condition at the opening of the 

 season contains a laying qu^een and some 30,000 to 40,000 

 worker bees, or six to eight quarts by measurement. Besides 

 this there should be four, five, or even more combs fairly 

 stocked with developing brood, with a good supply of honey 

 about it. Drones may also be present, even to the number of 

 several hundred. 



Ordinarily the queen mates but once, flying from the hive 

 to meet the drone high in the air, when five to nine days old 

 generally. Seminal fluid sufficient to impregnate the greater 

 number of eggs she will deposit during the next two or three 

 years (sometimes even four or five years) is stored at the time 

 of mating in a sac the spermatheca, opening into the egg- 

 passage. At the time the queen mates, there are in the hive 

 neither eggs nor young larvae from which to rear another 

 queen ; hence, should she be lost, no more fertilized eggs would 

 be deposited, arid the old workers gradually dying off without 

 being replaced by young ones, the colony would become extinct 

 in the course of a few months at most, or meet a speedier fate 

 through intruders, such as wax-moth larvae, robber bees, 

 wasps, etc., which its weakness would prevent its repelling 

 longer ; or cold is very likely to finish such a decimated colony, 

 especially as the bees, because queenless, are uneasy and do 

 not cluster compactly. 



The liquid secreted in the nectaries of flowers is usually quite 

 thin, containing, when just gathered, a large percentage of 



