664 



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are laid by the female, aud then 

 hatched bj' heat applied externally, as 

 in insects, fish, reptiles and birds. 



"Ovaviviparous" animals produce 

 eggs, but these are retained within the 

 body of the female until hatched. This 

 is true of some reptiles. In the " vivi- 

 parous " mode the eggs exist, but are 

 very minute, and development pro- 

 ceeds within the body of the female. 



The " aplacental " animals, opossums 

 and kangaroos, bring forth their young 

 in a very imperfectly developed state, 

 while in the " placental" animals the 

 j'oung are much further developed at 

 the time of birtli, as is true of all the 

 domestic animals. 



Beefi are ovixxirous insects, in which 

 an egg is laid, which in time hatches 

 into a worm (grub, larva or cater- 

 pillar). This, after a time, spins a 

 cocoon, and becomes the quiescent 

 pupa, and after a variable time the 

 pupa changes into the imago or per- 

 fect insect. The honey-bee has always 

 passed through all the stages of the 

 egg, the worm, the pupa, and the per- 

 fect insect. 



In a perfect colony of honey-bees in 

 the summer time we find one queen, a 

 few hundred drones, and several thou- 

 sand workers, of the last from 10,000 

 to 40,000. Now, that eggs and worms 

 and young bees are- found in bee-hives 

 was long known, but by what means 

 the eggs were laid for a long time 

 baffled the most careful observers. The 

 queen-bee was generally considered 

 the ruler of the colony, and a male, 

 hence, in Shakespeare, we read : 



" They have a kiaR and officers of state." 



And in Virgil, the Latin poet, 



" First of the throng and foremost of the whole 

 One stands confest, the sovereign and the soul." 



The naturalist Aristle has left a re- 

 mark showing that some observers of 

 his time, or possibly earlier, had a clue 

 as to the origin of bees, for he says, 

 " Some say that the rulers produce the 

 young of the bees." About the time 

 of Christ, Virgil, the poet already 

 quoted, gave the following method for 

 replenishing depleted bee-hives : 



A young bullock is to be killed by 

 being suffocated. His body is covered 

 with tlowers, and allowed to lie in a 

 secluded place until it decomposes. 

 Worms will appear in the putrid mass, 

 which, in time, will hatch into bees, 

 and then if empty liives are near, the 

 new bees will enter the same. Virgil 

 states, however, that this is the method 

 said to be practiced \n Egypt, but some 

 early English writei\s gravely recom- 

 mended the plan as the correct thing 

 to do. 



The earliest mention I 6nd of any 

 modern person knowing the true 

 method of bee-reproduction is that of 

 Joseph Warden, physician of Corydon, 



England, who, in 1617, published a 

 curious and interesting little book, en- 

 titled, '.'The Feminine Kingdom ; or, 

 the True Amazons." In this book he 

 tells us that the queen is the one female 

 in the colony, and that she is at once 

 the ruler and mother of all witliin the 

 hive. 



Butler, an English bee-keeper of an 

 earlier date, seems also to have had a 

 correct view of the same matter. Re- 

 cent students have cleared the matter 

 all up, and we are now able to under- 

 stand quite fully what so long puzzled 

 our predecessors. 



We will consider first the origin of 

 the queen, then of the workers, and 

 last of all, of the drones. 



How ttae Queen-Bee Is Prodaced. 



The queen is produced by two 

 methods, which may be termed the 

 ordinary and the extraordinary meth- 

 ods. As to the ordinary way : In a 

 strong colony of bees, in the months 

 of May and June, and sometimes later 

 (this is for the latitude of Pennsylva- 

 nia), there will often be found large 

 cells, which on the exterior much re- 

 semble ground-nuts or peanuts. These 

 cells are generally at the sides of the 

 comljs, though they are sometimes 

 found on the face of a comb. They 

 have thick walls, and an internal cavity 

 much greater than that found in either 

 worker or drone cells. 



A peculiarity of the queen-cells, for 

 so there are called, is that the mouth 

 opens downward, while all other cells 

 in the hive are horizontal. This ar- 

 rangement is doubtless made that more 

 room may be secured for the cell, for 

 naturally the combs are placed too 

 close together to build the queen-cells 

 in the ordinary horizontal position. At 

 any rate, queens will hatch from cells 

 placed horizontally. In these cells 

 eggs are placed, by what member of 

 the colony, is not certainly known. 



A single egg is placed in each cell, 

 some say by the queen, others think 

 by the workers. A number of careful 

 observers have declared that they have 

 seen the queen in the very act of de- 

 positing eggs in these cells. No one 

 doubts that the queen lays these eggs. 

 In time, they hatch into young queens, 

 if the colony is strong, and the weather 

 is favorable ; the young queens will be 

 ready to emerge in 1(J days from the 

 time the egg becomes a worm. How- 

 ever, if the workers are not ready for 

 the new queen, they will confine her 

 in her cell, feeding and earing for lier 

 there. 



Under favorable conditions, about 

 eight days before any young queen 

 will liatch out, the old queen leads off 

 a portion of the bees to form a new 

 colony, which, leaving tlie old home 

 for the new queen, will, in a short 

 time, fully replenish it with bees. 



So soon as a young queen emerges 

 from her cell, she makes a tour of the 

 hive, and finding any queen-cells, un- 

 less prevented by the workers, pro- 

 ceeds to tear them open and destroy 

 the immature queens. In case the 

 workers prevent this destruction, a 

 second swarm is given off, led by the 

 newlj' hatched queen. 



It is a curious fact, that the queen- 

 bee does not spin a complete cocoon, 

 but leaves one end open, which makes 

 her destruction very easy to any rival. 

 About the only use the queen makes 

 of b^r sting, is to destroy her rivals 

 with it. 



If the weather becomes bad, and the 

 honey-flow ceases, the workers fre- 

 quently destroy all the queen-cells, 

 thus preventing all swarming for the 

 season. On this plan, modern bee- 

 keepers prevent second swarms, by 

 opening the hives and cutting out all 

 queen-cells. 



What we call the extraordinary 

 method follows : Should the queen of 

 a healtliy colony be lost through any 

 accident, there being in the colony 

 worker larva; not over three days old, 

 the workers will select some of these 

 worms, destined in the ordinary course 

 of things to become worker-bees, and 

 by enlarging their cells, by assiduous 

 attention, feeding them almost con- 

 stantly upon a peculiar substance 

 called " roj-al jellj," will produce, in 

 due time, a number of healthy young 

 queens, one of whicli, the first to 

 hatch, becomes the leader of the col- 

 ony. This important discovery, that 

 the queen proceeds from a worker- 

 egg, was first announced by Schirarch, 

 a Saxon clergyman, in 1771. (It is an 

 interesting fact that nearly all of the 

 great discoveries in bee-production 

 have been made by clergymen.) 



On this discovery depends the 

 modern methods of commercial queen- 

 rearing, by whicli queens are now pro- 

 duced, in every modernized apiary the 

 world over, many bee-keepers making 

 queen-rearing an exclusive business. 

 Though the queen hatches in sixteen 

 days, the drone requires nineteen, and 

 the workers twenty-one days. The 

 shorter period is probably due to the 

 much more abundant and the richer 

 food supplied to tlie queens ; also be- 

 cause she has a more roomj- cell in 

 which to develop. This is an excellent 

 illustration of how mucli environment 

 will do for a develoiiing animal. On 

 these influences, the Rev. L. L. Lang- 

 stroth has written in his classic work 

 on the " Hive and Honej-Bee." He 

 says : 



" The peculiar mode in which the 

 worm designed to be reared as a queen 

 is treated, causes it (1) to arrive at 

 maturity almost one-third earlier than 

 if it had been bred a worker. And 



