80 PHYSIOLOGY OP THE HONEY-BEE. 



179. Sometimes the bees do not seem to know that these 

 eggs are drone-eggs, and in their eagerness to raise a queen, 

 they treat some of them as such, by enlarging their cells and 

 feeding them on special food (109). The poor overfed 

 drones, thus raised, usually perish in the cell (136). The 

 workers soon dwindle away, and the colony perishes. 



180. They often even fail to raise any queen from brood, 

 which may be given them by the Apiarist, unless some hatch- 

 mg bees are given at the same time. The latter, when informed 

 of the needs of the colony, usually succeed in raising a queen. 

 The introduction of a laying-queen in a laying-worker colony, 

 is the best remedy. (533.) 



181. The bees of the same colony understand each other 

 vei-y well for all their necessities, and they work with an 

 entrain which is truly admirable. They know each other, 

 probably by smell, for it is very rare to see a bee of the 

 hive treated as a robber (664). They never use their sting 

 except to defend themselves, when hurt, or their home, when 

 they think it is threatened. 



183. Their life is short, but their age depends very much 

 upon their greater or less exposure to injurious influences, 

 and severe labors. Those reared m the Spring and early 

 part of Summer, upon whom the heaviest labors of the hive 

 devolve, appear to live not more than thirty-five days, on an 

 average; while those bred at the close of Summer, and early 

 in Autumn, being able to spend a large pan of their time 

 in repose, attain a much greater age. It is very evident 

 that "the bee" (to use the words of a quaint old writer) "is 

 a Summer bird"; and that, with the exception of the queen, 

 none live to be a year old. 



If an Italian queen be given, in the working season, to a 

 hive of common bees, in about three months none of the 

 latter will be found in the colony, and as the black queen 

 removed has left eggs in the cells, which take twenty-one days 

 to hatch, it is evident that the bees all die from fatigue or 

 accident in the remaining ■ seventy days, making their average 

 life thirty-five days in the working season. 



