O PKACTIOAL BEE KEEPING. 



menees to surround itself with a wHtlsh silky coooon. The bees now 

 enolose it by a coTering of wax and poUen not impervious to the air, and in 

 this condition it is said to be sealed. The creature, now in the quiet obscu- 

 rity of its tomb-like chamber, begins to develop the more complex organi- 

 zation of the imago or perfect insect, and in twelve days bites its way out 

 of its prison house, not only provided with organs of flight and locomotion, 

 but fully equipped with those varied parts necessary to that circle of labour 

 which has been traced out for it by the finger of the Creator. The drone 

 is evolved from an egg deposited in one of the larger cells, and has a his- 

 tory similar to that of the worker, but twenty-five days instead of some- 

 thing less than twenty-one, are needed to produce the perfect insect. 



Honeycomb when first buUt by the bees is of beautiful whiteness, but 

 the operation of breeding in the cells soon stains it of a dark brown 

 colour, because each bee leaves behind it the shroud in which it had- 

 enveloped itself. 



The modus operandi of producing a queen is one of the most singular 

 features in the economy of the hive. Any egg which would if treated 

 as already described produce a worker, can by the bees, and at their will, be 

 converted into a queen. The oircumstanoea rendering a new queen 

 necessary it would be premature here to explain, but these circumstances 

 existing, the bees select either a few ordinary worker eggs or young worker 

 grubs and build around them, commonly by the destruction of three con- 

 tiguous cells, large cells not unlike acorns in form. (See illustration, in a 

 subsequent chapter). . The grubs are then fed in a. peculiar manner 

 upon a food known amongst bee keepers as " Eoyal-jelly," the exact 

 origin of which as distinct from ordinary food for grubs is as yet quite a 

 mystery. The result of this peculiar treatment is most remarkable. In 

 sixteen days instead of twenty or twenty-one from the laying of the egg a 

 queen emerges instead of a worker. Id est, a more perfect and fully- 

 developed creature (for a worker is an undeveloped female) is produped in 

 one-third less time. It is capable of laying a prodigious number of eggs 

 (in the breeding season often two thousand a day) whereas a worker is 

 incapable normally of becoming a mother. The body is longer, its color 

 lighter, its wings shorter than that of the worker, and unlike the latter- 

 its tongue is incapable of brushing up honey from flowers. It cannot 

 secrete wax ; it has no hollows in the legs for storing bee bread or pollen. 

 In short, to the initiated the queen in head, in body, in legs, in stin"' 

 everywhere, is unlike the worker. Its instincts are entirely changed. It 

 has no disposition to leave the hive for honey gathering. Its term of life is 

 extended from a few months at most, to four or five years, and all this 

 and much more is the result, so far as yet appears, of feeding. The 

 function of the drone is to meet the young queen at her flight, which she 

 usually ta,kes when about seven or eight days old, when in two days more, 

 she becomes a mother. 



