BEEKEEPING FOR CONNECTICUT. 



433 



If swarms cannot be obtained in this way it is best to purchase 

 from some reliable dealer. These may be obtained either in bulk, 

 in nucleus, or in full colonies. Full colonies will sometimes produce 

 enough the first season to pay for themselves, so that this usually 

 is a very satisfactory way to buy, and the purchaser will have 

 gentle, blooded stock to start with. 



The Colony. 



Every normal colony of bees in prosperous times is composed 

 of three varieties of bees: the queen, or, more correctly speaking, 

 the mother bee, that lays all the eggs (often as many as three 

 thousand a day during the busy season) ; forty or fifty thousand 



Figure 19. The honey bee: a, worker; 6, queen; c, drone. Twice 

 natural size. (After Phillips, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture.) 



workers or undeveloped females; and a few hundred drones or 

 male bees. The queen is the important factor in the success of 

 the colony. Ancient writers called her the "King," and it was only 

 within a few years, that the error was discovered. Some queens 

 are so prolific that the ordinary hive is too small to acconmiodate 

 them, keeping it overflowing with bees and activity, while others 

 are so inferior that their colonies make only a sickly effort to exist. 

 The drone, queen and worker are shown in figure 19. 

 , As has been mentioned, the combs are composed of two different 

 sized cells. Eggs laid in the larger or drone cells always mattue 

 drones, while those laid in the smaller ones mature workers. The 



