THE HONEY-BEE 49 



queen-eggs later than the drone. Neither can it 

 be the stimulus of the variation in the size of 

 the cell, for if all the large male-cells are removed, 

 the queen will lay an unfertilised egg in a worker- 

 cell, and conversely should the stock of worker- 

 cells be exhausted she will lay worker-eggs in 

 male-cells. The five or six queen-eggs laid in the 

 spacious royal-cells are not laid simultaneously, 

 but one after another at intervals of one or two 

 days, and the result- 

 ant young queens 

 emerge at similar in- 

 tervals. This arrange- 

 ment has an import ant 

 bearing on the swarm- 

 ing of the hive. 



As soon as an egg is laid the motherly instincts 

 of those " barren virgins " the worker-bees are 

 aroused. They push their heads into the cell 

 and apparently do something to the egg, though 

 no one knows what. Within three days a minute 

 white, maggot-like grub emerges and at once 

 demands the attention of several workers. It 

 is devoid of almost everything we associate with 

 bees. It has no wings, no legs, no sting, no 

 antennae, no eyes, no proboscis, no hairs, no 



D 



FIG. 6. 

 Bee-Larva (after Fleischmann) . 



