20 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



female eggs be establisted, and the law of their distribu- 

 tion explained, it seems a very difficult matter to believe 

 in any difference at all. 



Let us suppose that we have six bives, three of which 

 have scarcely a drone-cell in them ; the other three are 

 half filled with drone-combs. Those filled with worker- 

 cells will be filled with worker-brood; and to the same 

 extent will the three with drone-cells be filled with young 

 brood, but the haK of it wiU be drone-brood. Three of the 

 hives will have very few drones, the other three will be 

 haK fiUed with them. If the three queens which have 

 been depositing eggs in the hives containing worker-combs 

 exclusively, and thus producing nothing but working bees, 

 were exchanged for, and put in the places of the queens 

 in the hives containing the drone-combs, we would find 

 that their progeny, like the other queens, would be half 

 male and half worker. If this experiment were repeated 

 a hundred times, in various ways, the result would be the 

 same — viz., the number of cells determining the number 

 of drones bred. The bee-keeper can command his bees to 

 breed drones, simply by placing empty drone-comb in the 

 queen's way while laying eggs. If a hive have drone- 

 comb near the centre, where the queen commences to lay 

 her eggs in early spring, drones will be produced in it 

 much sooner — a month or six weeks sooner — than in those 

 whose drone-combs are built on the outsides of the combs. 

 Mr Woodbury admits that he rarely fails to get drones 

 by placing a bit of empty drone-comb in the midst of the 

 nest sooner than usual. 



Again, in strong hives, drones are produced four, six, 

 or eight weeks earlier than in weak ones. If the queens 

 of the weak hives were transplanted into the strong ones, 

 we should find drones produced as plentifully from their 

 eggs, as from those whose places they fill. And, more- 



