II.— QUEEN-REARING IN NATURE. 



Queens are reared in Nature under three different con- 

 ditions : — (i) When a colony is about to swarm; (2) when 

 the queen is failing ; and (3) when, through accident, the 

 queen suddenly dies or gets lost. 



Queen-Rearing; undet the Swatmingf Impalse. — In 

 May or June, when the hive is crowded with bees, and 

 there are a large number of young bees being reared, about 

 a dozen queen-cells, resembling inverted cups, are formed 

 in the brood-nest, chiefly on the side and bottom edges of 

 the combs. In some colonies these queen-cells are, after a 

 time, destroyed, and no swarm eventually issues, but, in 

 others, the queen sooner or later deposits an egg in each 

 queen-cell. If the colony continues to prosper the egg is 

 allowed to remain, and after three 

 days a larva hatches from it. 



The larva is supplied by the 

 worker bees with a quantity of 

 opaque white jelly, resembling flour 

 paste, called " royal jelly," on which 

 it floats and feeds (Fig. i, A). At 

 first the amount of royal jelly sup- 

 plied to the larva is small, but it is 

 soon greatly increased, and there is 

 always much more of it than the 

 larva can consume. Dufour and 

 Schonfeld have shown that the royal 

 jelly is produced in the chyle- 

 stomach.* It has, therefore, been 

 named chyle-food. It is chiefly produced by the young 

 bees, which remain in the hive while the older bees do the 

 honey-gathering. The queen-larva grows rapidlv, and in 

 five days after hatching it becomes full-grown. The mouth 

 of the queen-cell is then sealed over by the bees with wax, 

 and the larva lines the sealing with a laver of silk. A 

 considerable quantity of the royal jelly is left unconsumed 

 in the base of the cell. If the weather is fine, as soon as 



rig. 1. 



Diagram showing 

 Que«n-C6ll built 

 swarming impulse, and ^b) 

 Queen-cell built after loss 

 of queen. 



(A) 



under 



•See " Th« Honey Bee," by T. W. Cowan, second edition, pp. 120 to 124. 



