12 



THE PRACTICAL BEE GUIDE. 



her. She will take up the task of supplying the vacant cells 

 with eggs. Generation after generation shall live and die, and 

 leave her still fulfilling her calling. Nor will several years 

 exhaust the 25,000,000 spermatozoa which one short intercourse 

 supplied (43). Just here is disclosed another marvellous 

 f-aSitme in the life of the bee. The drone which fertilised the 

 queen; himself fatherless — the product of an unimpregnated 

 egg, becomes the father of countless thousands of worker bees, 

 and of many full-developed queens. The queen with which he 

 mated can, at will, lay eggs of either sex. Passing across the 

 comb from cell to cell she will deposit in one an egg from 

 which will hatch a female (worker), and in an adjoining cell, 

 built larger to accommodate a drone, she will lay an egg that 

 shall produce a m-a.le ; the former impregnated as it passes the 

 spermatheca (43), the latter, not. Strange, also, that from the 

 egg which the queer; , by movement of a muscle has impreg- 

 nated with element of the male, the workers can, at will, hatch 

 out an undeveloped female like themselves, or a full-developed 

 queen to carry on the reproduction of the species (197). And 

 strange, that eggs laid by a queen who never has been mated, 

 or by a worker who sometimes will rashly take upon her the 

 functions of a queen (200), will hatch out drones, and 

 fecundation follow upon parthenogenesis. (44). 



23. A Splendid Example. — The queen, now in "full use," 

 rapidly occupies the cells with eggs, of which from 2,000 to 

 3,000 may be deposited in one day (4). The population rises. 

 The bees, encouraged by increasing quantities of brood, and 

 urged on by the hunger-wants of growing larvas, search the 

 country side and carry in rich stores of nectar; still looking 

 to the future ; labouring for others ; setting a splendid example 

 of diligence, and perseverance, and foresight. Summer will 

 not last for ever. They know it — these patterns of hopeful 

 industry, whose message to the world is wise — " Improve the 

 shining hour, for time in its passing waitet'u for none." 



