108 MONEY IN BEES IN AUSTEALASIA 



When the executioner arrives, she wastes no time 

 attacking the portion of the cell reinforced by the cocoon, 

 but starts at once to tear a hole in the side of the cell 

 just above the dotted line. While the base of the cell 

 is made very thick with wax and bits of refuse, the point 

 is protected by the cocoon. The position indicated by 

 the dotted line is therefore the weakest point, and it is 

 here that queen-cells are always destroyed whether by 

 worker-bees or queen. After the queen has effected a 

 breach she inserts her sting and administers the coup de 

 la mort. (The slightest prick of the sting proves fatal to 

 bees). The worker bees now enlarge the hole, drag out 

 the body, and to make a good clean finish eat up any 

 royal food that remains. The cells soon disappear as 

 they are never again used for royal cradles. 



Should a queen be killed accidentally, or removed 

 from the hive, the bees will at once select larvae to receive 

 an extra supply of royal jelly. Such is their haste to 

 supply the missing mother that they do not make queen 

 cells similar to the ones described, but simply build out 

 one or two — perhaps more — worker cells and amalgamate 

 them into a queen-cup on the face of the comb. Cells 

 so built are poor, miserable things, hardly any dimpling 

 on them, and the queens that hatch are little better 

 than half workers. The circumstances under which such 

 queens are reared are so entirely at variance with the 

 conditions existing at swarming time, that a well- 

 developed mother could not possibly be produced this 

 way. Whenever the apiarist comes across a queen reared 

 in this fashion he should destroy her and re-queen with 

 one of better development. 



YOUNG QUEENS LAY DRONE EGGS. 



Earely, a beautiful well-developed mother will start 

 off laying drone eggs, but after a while she appears to 

 get the "machinery" under better control, and worker 

 eggs are laid almost without exception for the whole of 

 the first season. A virgin queen delayed unduly from 

 mating with the male bee starts to lay drone eggs and 



