6 BEES FOE PLEASURE AND PEOPIT. 



extremely convex, and very easy to distinguish from those of 

 worker brood. 



Towards th& close of the summer, when honey is becoming 

 less plentiful, the workers turn the drones out of the hive, 

 refuse to feed them, and leave them to perish of cold or starva- 

 tion — the drones being unable to defend themselves, as they 

 possess no sting. A stock of bees which has collected a very 

 large amount of honey will, however, often retain its drones 

 till quite late in the autumn, and I have had large numbers of 

 drones in my hives as late as October. 



The drones come out only on fine, warm days, and then 

 generally between the hours of eleven and three. 



The Queen. 



The queen bee, as already mentioned, is reared from a 

 worker-egg, placed in a large acorn-shaped cell (fig. 36), and 

 Uberally supplied with a very rich food known as " royal 



jelly." 



It is indeed wonderful that the size and shape of the cell, 

 and the plentiful supply of a rich kind of food should work 

 such a remarkable transformation. True, in the worker bee 

 can be found, by the aid of an extremely powerful microscope, 

 the small abortive ovaries, which in the queen bee are so large 

 and iuWy developed. But the legs of the queen are quite 

 different from those of the worker, as they are provided with 

 no pollen baskets. Again, in the sting of the queen we see 

 another marvellous modification; for while the sting of the 

 worker has seven distinct barbs, that of the queen has but 

 three, and these barbs are shorter than those on the worker's 

 sting. It is very rarely, if ever, that the queen will use her 

 sting, except upon a rival queen : though we may handle her 

 and tease her as much as we like she will not sting. It is said 

 that on the rare occasions when she does sting, it causes but 

 slight pain to the person, compared with that experienced after 

 a sting from a worker. 



Should the bees be deprived of their queen by some acci- 

 dent, they can raise another from any worker egg or larva — ■ 

 provided that the latter is not more than three days old. It 

 is, however, much better to obtain a queen raised from the egg 

 on the royal pabulum ; and, to ensure this, if we intend to remove 

 a queen from a hive, and let the bees raise another, we should 

 insert a clean, new worker-comb in the hive forty-eight hours 



