INHABITANTS OF THE HIVE.—Chapter VII. 
issuing swarm, of which she becomes the queen and mother in a new home. 
Within two or three days after mating she begins laying eggs, thrusting 
her abdomen into an empty cell and neatly gluing an egg fast to the bottom 
of it. During the busy season of the year, when it is necessary that the 
inhabitants of the hive be kept at the highest possible number in order to 
furnish sufficient workers to gather the pollen and honey crop necessary 
to the welfare of the colony, she is capable of laying daily two or three 
thousand eggs—nearly twice her weight. Her laying is regulated largely 
by the honey flow, strength and needs of the colony, this apparently 
being controlled by the amount and kind of food given her by the workers. 
Usually in the spring (at the beginning of the honey flow mm the North) 
when many workers are needed, she lays the most; but when the honey has 
been harvested she lays fewer eggs. Her ordinary laying season is from 
February to October (in temperate regions), but early in the spring she 
lays but little. She does no laying ordinarily during the dormant winter 
period. Perhaps the most wonderful special characteristic of the queen is 
her ability to lay either worker or drone eggs. The male elements within 
her are contained in a sac known as.the spermatheca, in which are myriads 
of these male sex cells received at a single mating with the drone, and ren- 
der her fertile for life. The eggs deposited in a worker-cell are fertilized 
from this and produce workers; those deposited in drone-cells are not. fer- 
tilized and produce drones. So it is that the drone or male bee is really a 
bee without a father. An infertile queen can lay eggs that will produce 
sons and sons only. This is a reproductive power known as parthenogene- 
sis, and possessed by only a very few other insects. The queen mother may 
live for a term of three or four years and perform her duty of laying well 
during this time, and possibly be the single mother of a half million workers 
and drone bees. But, ordinarily, a queen older than two years begins to 
fail, and for this reason many beekeepers replace all their queens as often 
as every two years. 
Only one queen, under normal conditions, is found in the hive at one 
time. The workers might tol- 
erate more than one queen; 
but queens themselves are 
jealous of each other, and, 
when they meet, a mortal 
combat follows, during 
which one of them receives a 
fatal sting from the other 
and dies at once. Sometimes 
a queen mother and her 
daughter will get along to- 
gether in the same hive dur- 
ing the summer; but ordi- 
narily toward the fall and 
winter season, when the busy 
time is past, the mother dis- 
appears. (For discussion of 
management of the queen, 
The queen is shown at the center of this picture 
surrounded by adoring workers. see Chapter X.) 
38 
