lo THE BOOK OF THE HONEY BEE 



cell is fed by the nurse bees with food of great richness 

 and in greatest abundance (termed by Huber " royal jelly ") 

 for the full period of its larval existence, and is not 

 weaned, as is the case of larvae intended to produce 

 workers. The result of this liberal diet is fully to 

 develop the ovaries, thereby ultimately producing a bee 

 capable of reproducing its species. The fully matured 

 virgin queen emerges from the cell in fifteen or sixteen 

 days from the time the egg was laid. 



A glance at the illustrations (pages I0-90) taken from 

 life will show the appearance of the sealed queen cell. 

 Five days after birth or thereabouts the young virgin 

 queen sallies forth for the purpose of being fecundated 

 by mating with a drone. Fertilisation must take place 

 during flight, and is probably Nature's safeguard against 

 inbreeding. The act costs the drone its life, and the 

 queen returns to the hive with portions of the male 

 organs attached, of which she eventually rids herself. 

 The ovaries themselves are not actually fertilised, but 

 the queen receives and stores the spermatozoa of the 

 drone in a special receptacle provided for that purpose, 

 and she can fertilise or not as she wills the eggs that 

 she lays. The bees produced from fertilised eggs 

 eventually become either workers or queens at the 

 will of the workers themselves. The unfertilised eggs 

 produce drones. 



From this it will be apparent that queens which have 

 never mated with a drone are yet capable of laying eggs, 

 but these eggs invariably produce drones. Still further, 

 the drone with which the queen mated has no influence 

 upon her male progeny. This is demonstrable by cross 

 fertilising — say, a native queen with an Italian drone. 

 The resultant worker progeny are all hybrids, whilst 

 the drones retain all the characteristics of the pure 

 native. This must be taken as the general rule ; only 

 there are exceptions. 



