84 



gleani:ngs in bee culture. 



Mar. 



the bees are disposed to rob, all such attempts 

 will come to "grief," very quickly. 



F. 



r^RTIIiS WORKSRS. These queer 

 inmates, or rather occasional inmates of the 

 hive, are worker bees that lay eggs. Aye, 

 and the eggs they lay hatch, too, but they 

 only hatch drones, and never worker bees. 

 The drones are rather smaller than the drones 

 produced by a queen, bvit they are neverthe- 

 less, drones, in every respect, so far as we 

 can discover. It may be well to remark 

 that ordinary worker bees, are not neuters, 

 as they are sometimes called; they are con- 

 sidered undeveloped females. Microscopic 

 examination, shows the imdeveloped germ, 

 of nearly every organ found in the queen, 

 and these organs may become, at any time, 

 sufficiently developed, to allow the bee to lay 

 eggs, but never to allow^ of fertilization by 

 meeting the drone as the queen does. 



CAUSE OF FERTILE "WORKERS. 



It has been over and over again suggested, 

 that bees capable of this egg laying duty, 

 were tliose reared in the vicinity of queen 

 cells, and that by some means they have re- 

 recieved a small portion of the i-oyal jelly, 

 necessary to their development as bee moth- 

 ers. This theory has, I believe, been entire- 

 ly disproven by many experiments; and it is 

 now pretty generally conceded that fertile 

 workers may make their appearance in any 

 colony or nucleus that has been for some 

 days queenless, and without the means of 

 rearing a queen. Xot only may one bee take 

 upon herself these duties, but there may be 

 many of them, and wherever the bee-keep- 

 er has been so careless, as to leave his bees 

 destitute of either brood or queen, for 10 

 days or two weeks, you may be pretty sure he 

 will find evidences of their presence in the 

 shape of eggs scattered about promiscuously; 

 sometimes one, but oftener a half dozen in a 

 single cell. If the matter has been going on 

 for some time, you will see now and then 

 a drone larva, and sometimes two or three 

 crowding eacli other, in their single cell; some 

 times tiiey start queen cells ovei this drone 

 larva; the poor motherless orphans seeming 

 to feel that something is wTong, like a drown- 

 ing man, are disposed to catch at any straw. 



HOW TO GET RID OF FERTILE WORKERS. 



I feel very much like saying again, that 

 prevention is better than cure; if a colony, 

 from any cause becomes queenless. be sure 

 they have unsealed ])rood of the proper age 

 to raise another: and wlien this one is raised. 



be sure that she becomes fertile. It can nev- 

 er do any hanu to give a queenless colony 

 eggs and brood, and it may be the saving of 

 it. But suppose you have been so careless 

 as to allow a colony to become queenless, 

 and get weak, what are you to do? If you 

 attempt to give them a queen, and a fertile 

 worker is present, she will be pretty sure to 

 get stung; it is in fact, often almost impossi- 

 ble to get them to even accept a queen cell. 

 The poor fellows get into a habit of accept- 

 ing one of the egg laying workers as a queen, 

 and they will have none other, until she is 

 removed; yet you cannot find her, for she is 

 just like any other bee; you may get hold of 

 her, possibly, by carefully noticing the way 

 in which the other bees deport themselves 

 toward her, or you may catch her in the act 

 of egg laying, but even this often fails, 

 for there may be several such in the hive at 

 once. You may give them a small strip of 

 comb containing eggs and brood, but they 

 will seldom start a good queen cell, if they 

 start any at all, for a colony having fertile 

 workers, seems perfectly demoralized, so far 

 as getting them into regular work is concern- 

 ed, in the majority of cases. 



My friends, you have allowed them to get 

 into this condition, by being negligent in 

 supplying brood when they were on the verge 

 of ruin for the want of a single egg or young 

 laiwae. and the remedy now, is to give them 

 a fresh invoice of bees, brood and combs from 

 some other hive ; if you wish to make a sure 

 thing, give them at least three good combs, 

 of brood and bees. This is almost start- 

 ing a new colony, but it is the cheapest way, 

 when they get so they will not receive a fiueen. 

 If the stock has become very weak, it may 

 be best to unite them with some other colony 

 for it certainly does not pay to have them 

 killing queens, and tearing down queen cells. 



If the fertile workers are discovered when 

 they first make their appearance, before 

 you see any of the drone larvae scattered 

 about, they Avill often accept a queen cell, or 

 a fertile queen without difficulty. I have, 

 before, advised giving all colonies or nuclei, 

 some eggs and brood just before the young 

 queen is old enough to take lier flight; when 

 this is done, there can be but little chance of 

 fertile workers, for they will always have the 

 means of rearing another queen, if their own 

 is lost in taking her flight. Sometimes a 

 fertile worker may be disposed of, by mov- 

 ing the combs into an enii)ty hive, placed at 

 a little distance from the other; the bees will 

 nearly all go into their old hive, but the queen, 

 as she thinks herself to be, will remain on 



