INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS 267 



of days required for development, as appears in the following table, from 

 Benton: 



Egg. Larva. Pupa. Total. 



Queen, 3 5^ 7 I S^ 



Worker, 3 5 13 21 



Drone, 3 6 15 24 



The cells in which queens develop (Fig. 283) are quite different from 

 worker or drone cells, being much larger, more 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 structure; 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 sensory 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 con- 

 tains a laying queen 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, and 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 water. Bees suck 

 or lap it up from such flowers as they can reach with their flexible, suck- 

 ing tongue, 0.25 to 0.28 inch long. This nectar is taken into the honey 



