FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



223 



now, the bees should select a larva more than three days old, 

 the queen -woukl emerge in less than nine days. I think no one 

 has ever known this to occur. 



Fig. 81. — Robber Bees. 



BEES DO NOT PREFER TOO OLD LARVAE. 



As a matter of fact bees do not use such poor judgment as 

 to select larvas too old when larvse sufficiently young are present, 

 as I have proven by direct experiment and many observations. 

 It will not do, however, to conclude from this that all queen-cells 

 started by a queenless colony left to themselves will be equally 

 good. Bees have a fashion of starting cells for a number of 

 days in succession, and will continue to start them when larvae 

 sufficiently young for good queens are no longer present. So 



