WORK WITH THE QUEEN.—Chapter X. 
queen may sometimes emerge, 
become fertilized, and peaceably 
share the duties of egg-laying 
with her mother until the latter 
dies. If a colony found raising 
supersedure queen-cells is of 
good stock, it is often advisable 
to let matters take their own 
course; for the queens thus 
raised are usually of superior 
quality. But if the stock is not 
ea desirable, the queen-cells should 
Putting a queen-cell ina protector into the be removed and a queen-cell ina 
hive. . 
. ; cell-protector, introduced. .When 
supersedure queen-cells are built during the swarming season the colony 
may swarm, even if not strong, the colony apparently being induced to 
swarm by the presence of queen-cells. Usually fewer queen-cells are built for 
supersedure than for swarming. Sometimes only one or two queen-cells 
are built for supersedure, and often one of these is started several days or 
even a week in advance of the other. 
Laying Workers. 
Ordinarily worker bees are females imperfectly developed as to sex. 
Under certain cireumstances their special organs become developed-to such 
an extent that they are able to lay eggs, in which case they become laying 
workers (sometimes called “fertile workers”). Such eggs, however, al- 
ways develop drones, since fertilization of workers is impossible, and only 
fertilized eggs can produce females. If a virgin queen becomes lost in 
mating, a colony is without a laying queen for so long a time that there are 
no young larvae left, and therefore no chance to raise another queen; the 
colony after two or three weeks may become infested with these laying 
workers. To get rid of them, rather strenuous measures must be adopted, 
since it is very difficult to distinguish them from ordinary workers, and 
there may be a great number of them present in the same hive. 
For the beginner having only a few colonies, let him exchange (but 
not before nor during the main honey flow) the location of the hive having 
the laying workers with that of a strong colony, at the same time intro- 
ducing a queen by the cage method into the laying-worker colony. 
Drone-Layers. 
Finding a colony with mostly drone brood, and with eggs placed 
irregularly, does not necessarily prove the presence of laying workers, 
for the brood of drone-laying queens has much the same appearance, al- 
though there are usually fewer eggs, and they are placed deeper in the 
cells, a8 
58 
