ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 219 



" One of these is, in general, destined for the elaboration 

 of wax, and its sizg is considerably enlarged when full of 

 honey ; the other immediately imparls what it has collect- 

 ed to its companions, its abdomen undergoes no sensible 

 change, or it retains only the honey necessary for its own 

 subsistence. The particular function of the bees of this 

 kind is to take care of the young, for they are not charged 

 with provisioning the hive. In opposition to the wax 

 workers, we shall call them small bees or nurses." 



"Although the external difference be inconsiderable, this 

 is not an imaginary distinction. Anatomical observations 

 prove that the capacity of the stomach is not the same — 

 experiments have ascertained that one of the species can- 

 not fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of a 

 hive. We painted those of each class with different colors, 

 in order to study their proceedings ; and these were not 

 interchanged. In another experiment, after supplying a 

 hive deprived of a queen with brood and pollen, we saw 

 the small bees -quickly occupied in nutrition of the larvse, 

 while those of the wax working class neglected them. 

 Small bees also produce wax, but in a very inferior quanti- 

 ty to what is elaborated by the real wax workers." 



Now if these statements can be relied on, and thus far 

 I have nearly always found Ruber's statements, where- 

 ever I had an opportunity to test them, to be most wonder- 

 fully reliable, then it may be that when bees refuse to clus- 

 ter on the brood comb and to proceed at once to rear a 

 new queen, it is because they find that some of the con- 

 ditions necessary for success are wanting. Either there 

 may not be a sufficient number of wax-workers, to enlarge 

 the cells, or a sufficient number of nurses to take charge 

 of the larvEB ; or it may be that the cells contain only 

 young wax- workers which cannot be developed into queens, 



