220 ELEMENTARY ZOOLOGY 



thirteen days, when the, fully developed bee issues, and 

 breaking through the wax cap of the cell is ready for the 

 labors which are immediately assigned it. The bee with 

 the kind of life-history just described is a worker. It has 

 been demonstrated that the eggs which produce workers 

 and those which produce queens do not differ, but if the 

 workers desire to have a queen produced they tear down 

 two or three cells around some one cell, enlarging this 

 latter into a large vase-shaped cell. When the larva 

 hatches from the egg in this cell it is fed for its whole 

 larval life with bee-jelly. From the pupa into which this 

 larva transforms issues not a worker but a new queen. 

 The eggs which produce drones or males differ from those 

 which produce queens and workers in being unfertilized, 

 the queen having the power to lay either fertilized or 

 unfertilized eggs. When a new queen appears or when 

 several appear at once there is great excitement in the 

 community. If several appear they fight among them- 

 selves until only one survives. It is said that a queen 

 never uses its sting except against another queen. The 

 old queen now leaves the hive accompanied by many of 

 the workers. She and her followers fly away together, 

 finally alighting on some tree-branch and massing there 

 in a dense swarm. This is the familiar act of 4< swarm- 

 ing. " Scouts leave the swarm to find a new home, to 

 which they finally conduct the whole swarm. Thus is 

 founded a new colony. "This swarming of the honey- 

 bee is essential to the continued existence of the species ; 

 for in social insects it is as necessary that the colonies be 

 multiplied as it is that there should be a reproduction of 

 individuals. Otherwise as the colonies were destroyed 

 the species would become extinct. With the social wasps 

 and with the bumblebees the old queen and the young 

 ones remain together peacefully in the nest; but at the 

 close of the season the nest, is abandoned by all as an 



