28 PLEASURABLE BEE-KEEPING. 



tember, and having little work to do, will, as a rule, 

 pass through the winter and come out strong and 

 vigorous in the spring. 



Fertile Woekees. 



It occasionally happens that when a queen dies 

 or is killed, and the bees have not the power, for want 

 of worker eggs, to replace her with another queen of 

 their own raising, a worker is found to have the power 

 of egg-laying. This is thought to result from the bees 

 hatched near queen cells having, when in their larval 

 state, received a share of the queen jelly, as the food 

 administered to the queen is termed ; but whatever 

 may be the cause of so extraordinary a change in their 

 functions, they are useless for the reproduction of 

 species, as the eggs they lay only produce drones. 



The presence of a fertile worker in a hive may be 

 detected by the irregular manner in which she deposits 

 her eggs in the cells, and also by the fact that the cap- 

 pings of the worker cells will be found to project when 

 the bees begin sealing over the grubs which will pro- 

 duce drones. 



A stock maybe freed from a fertile worker by taking 

 the hive some distance away from the site it occupies, 

 and then shaking all the bees from the combs. In a 

 queenless hive all bees, except the fertile workers, fly 

 daily. Therefore, when they are shaken from the 

 frames, they will return to their old site, while the 

 fertile worker will be rendered homeless and meet with 

 her fate if she attempts to enter any other hive. 



