THE ECONOMY OF THE HIVE if 



posed to bring about the evolution. The worker 

 bees being debarred from the stimulating food 

 which conduces to , the perfection of the queen 

 are rendered physically, incapable of mating with 

 the drone, and therefore can never head a colony. 

 The worker bee can lay eggs,' and' does $o at 

 times, but these eggs produce drones only. 



This curious feature of reproduction without 

 fecundation is known as parthenogenesis. 



The eggs laid by the queen hatch on the third 

 day, and after passing through the larval and 

 chrysalis stages peculiar to insects, the fully- 

 developed bee hatches on the fifteenth or six- 

 teenth day if it be a queen, on the twenty-first 

 day if a worker, and on the twenty-fourth- day if 

 it be a drone. These dates are taken from the 

 time the egg is laid. 



A short survey has now been given of the life- 

 history of the bee and of its anatomy. This 

 account is sufficiently full for inclusion in a prac- 

 tical manual, and now we will take the course of 

 events which have place in a normal colony during 

 a season's working. By this means the following 

 chapters will be readily understood and easily put 

 into practice. 



Towards the end of February bees begin to 

 move about more freely, and to shake off the 

 lethargy of their winter semi-hibernation. The 

 queen will begin to lay eggs, a tiny circle at 

 first in the centre of the cluster, which rapidly 

 enlarges as the days grow longer and pollen 



