206 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



by a number of workers, and her wants are carefully 

 supplied. If two queens are in the same colony they 

 enter into combat, being urged by the workers, and 

 fight till one stings the other to death. 



When a young queen is ready to leave the cell in 

 which she has been reared, she is not permitted to do 

 so, but she is guarded by the workers until the old 

 queen has abandoned the hive with a swarm, and then 

 she is permitted to leave her cell. When the queen 

 has fully matured in her cell, the workers cut away 

 the wax from the end of the cell till it is an exceed- 

 ingly thin film. 



If the colony is deprived of its queen, the workers, 

 after searching in vain for her, set to work to rear a 

 new queen. For this purpose they select a larva that 

 would develop into a worker, remove some of the 

 neighboring cells and construct for it a large vertical 

 cell. By feeding this larva on' royal jelly it becomes a 

 queen. 



If two queens during combat acquire a position in 

 which they might destroy each other, thus leaving 

 the hive without a queen, they refrain from giving 

 each other the mortal stroke. 



When the swarming season is over, the old queen 

 is permitted by the workers to sting to death all the 

 queens that are in the cells. 



If the queen loses both of her antennae she is un- 

 able to properly deposit her eggs, and the workers per- 

 mit her to perish. 



At the close of the swarming season all of the 

 drones are killed by the workers. They are no longer 

 needed, for the old queen has already been fertilized, 

 and new drones can be reared in the following spring; 

 thus food is saved for the use of those bees alone that 

 will be of future use to the colony. 



If they lose the queen when swarming, they return 



