PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 771 



cannot ordinarily be measured by mmmds and seers or valued by rupees 

 and annas. There are plants which do not produce any fruit if their 

 flowers are not visited by bees. 



The Natural History of the Honey-bee. 



The natural history of the honey-bee is a very fascinating study. 

 Here reference is made to only so much of it as will enable one to under- 

 stand the drift of this paper. 



The bee-colony is made up of the mother-bee called the " queen," 

 a large number of working bees called " workers " and some male bees 

 called " drones." There is a complete difEerentiation of the work to 

 be performed by the different members. The queen-bee lays eggs from 

 which all bees in the colony develop. She lives for about three years. 

 The workers do all kinds of work, such as building combs, collecting 

 honey and pollen, rearing the brood and every other work necessary 

 for the well-being of the colony. Therefore, the greater the number 

 of workers, the better is the condition of the colony. There may be 

 fifty or sixty thousand of them in a colony, or even more. They 

 however do not live for more than about three to six months. 

 Therefore, in order that the colony may go on, it is neces.sary for 

 new workers to be born to replace those which die. The queen lays 

 a number of eggs every day and new workers are reared and born 

 every day in the colony. In the daily economy of the bee-hive the 

 drone has no function. In order that the number of bee colonies 

 may increase, nature has provided the bees with instincts which lead 

 the reigning queen to leave the colony at a particular time in the year 

 with about half the number of bees in it and establish a new colony 

 elsewhere. This is called swarming. Before swarming takes place, 

 new queens are reared and are born just after the departure of the 

 old queen with the swarm. The services of the drone are required 

 at this time to fertilize the new queen. The mating of the queen 

 with the drone takes place in the air. The young queen flies out of 

 the hive during the middle of the day for the purpose. A fertilized 

 queen can perform the function required of her in the colony. An 

 unfertilized queen cannot. 



In a normal colony there must be a queen and a large body of workers. 

 New colonies can be started with a queen and a few thousand workers. 

 In this manner several colonies can be formed out of one. Old cclonies 

 can be carried on for years if they can be provided with new queens 

 when the old queens die or lose vitality. If colonies are re-queened 



