PRACTICAL BEEKEEPING 19 



those fully developed for reproduction, and known as the queens, 

 and those whose reproductive organs are undeveloped, but which 

 are more highly developed along other lines and which serve as the 

 laborers of the colony and are called workers. The males are the 

 drones and do no work, but they are absolutely necessary in any 

 apiary unless fertilized queens are to be continually introduced as 

 needed from some other apiary. An ordinary colony will have one 

 queen, two to three hundred drones, and twenty to thirty thousand 

 workers. 



E"ig. 6. Que^n cells and worker brood in various stages (Benton, Manual 

 of the Honey Bee, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 



We have said that the queens and workers come alike from the 

 fertilized eggs. The difference in development is due to the charac- 

 ter and amount of food supplied the growing larvae. The time spent 

 in the egg stage after deposition is alike for all, three days. The 

 eggs then hatch into small white grubs or larvae and remain in this 

 stage five and a half days for the queen, or five days for the worker. 

 For the first three days the larvae are fed the secretion from the 

 glands of the head of the nurse bees (young bees less than two weeks 

 old in general.) Then the worker larvae are fed on honey and 

 'later pollen until the pupa state of thirteen days. The larva des- 



