448 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



When the princess-pupa changes to the full-grown queen she cuts a 

 circular door in the cover of the cell and pushes through it into the world. 

 Her first real work is to hunt for other queen cells and if she finds one, she 

 will, if not hindered, make a hole in its side and sting to death the poor 

 princess within. If she finds another full-grown queen, the two fight 

 until one succumbs. The queen never uses her sting upon anything or 

 anyone except a rival queen. 



After a few days she takes her marriage flight in the air, where she 

 mates with some drone, and then returns to her hive and begins her great 

 work as mother of the colony. She runs about on the comb, pokes her 

 head into a cell to see if it is ready, then turning about thrusts her abdomen 

 in and neatly glues an egg fast to the bottom. 



When the honey season is at its height she works with great rapidity, 

 sometimes laying at the rate of six eggs per minute, often producing 3,000 

 eggs during a day, which would equal twice her own weight. If the 

 workers do not allow her to destroy the other queens, she then takes a 

 portion of her colony with her and swarms out, seeking a home elsewhere. 



D, head of drone; Q, head of queen bee: W, head of worker; 



X, worker bee seen from below, showing plates of wax 



secreted from wax pockets. 



From How to Keep Bees — Comstock. 



Drawn by A. J. Hammar, 



