24 A. AND M. COLLKGE APIARY. 



almost devoid of hairs and presents a shining appearance. A good queen 

 will, during the honey season, lay as high as 1500 to 2000 eggs per day. 

 Usually she will continue active egg laying for two years, often three, 

 after which time she is usually superseded by a young queen. 



The workers are by far the most abundant individuals in the hive, 

 numbering in strong colonies about 40,000. They are the units of organ- 

 ized labor and to their lot fall all the duties of the hive, except the egg 

 laying and fertilizing of the queen. They build the comb, gather the 

 honey, keep up the temperature and ventilation of the hive, brood over 

 the eggs, feed the young bees or larvae, and protect the community from 

 robbers and other enemies. In appearance they differ from the queen by 

 their shorter and somewhat smaller body, and by marked pubescence iipon 

 the thorax. Both the queen and workers are provided with stings, but 

 the queen rarely makes use of hers, even when roughly handled in the 

 fingers or perhaps mashed, and it is supposed that she only uses that 

 weapon when in a fight with a rival queen. The workers when angered 

 do not hesitate to use their stings. The drones will be found more abun- 

 dant at certain seasons than at others, and especially are they plentiful 

 at the approach of swarming time in the spring. Hardly to exceed two 

 or three hundred are to be found at a time in each colony, and as a usual 



Fig. 1. Queen's egg, highly magnified. (From A. I. 

 Boot, A B C of Bee Culture.) 



thing fifty to seventy-five will nearly be the correct number during the 

 summer and autumn. They may be readily recognized by their immense 

 size as compared with the workers, and by the fact that their abdomens 

 are blunt and rounded, instead of sharp at the apex as are those of the 

 queen and workers. (See Plate II.) Big and clumsy appearing fellows, 

 they have no part in the economy of the hive, and their sole object of 

 existence is to fertilize the young queen which, under natural conditions, 

 appears in the colony about once a year. They gather no honey, do no 

 work, and merely consume stores. At the approach of winter or upon a 

 dearth of honey they are one and all ruthlessly killed or expelled from the 

 hive to perish, by the workers. The drone develops from an unfertilized 

 egg, and as the queen seems to have the power of laying fertilized or 

 unfertilized eggs at will, drones are produced whenever needed, as at the 

 beginning of the next honey flow or at the approach of swarming time. 

 The egg described above (see Fig. 1) when seen under the microscope 

 presents a beautiful appearance, being covered with a net-work 01 fine 

 lines. At the end of about three days after deposition the egg hatches, 

 having been previously surrounded with a milky food by the worker bees. 

 The egg produces a very small, pure white larva, the growth of which is 

 very rapid. For six days it is fed by the worker bees and at about the 



