90 MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 



THE NEUTERS, OR WORKER-BEES. 



These, called " the bees," by Aristotle, and even by Wild- 

 man and Bevan, are by far the most numerous individuals of 

 the hive — there being from 15,000 to 40,000 in every good 

 colony. It is possible for a colony to be even much more 



Fig. 19. 



Worker-Bee, magnified. 



populous than this. These are also the smallest bees of the 

 colony, as they measure but little more than one-half of an 

 inch in length (Fig. 19). 



The workers — as taught by Schirach, and proved by Mile. 

 Jurine, of Geneva, Switzerland, who, at the request of Huber, 

 sought for and found, by aid of her microscope, the abortive 

 ovaries — are undeveloped females. Rarely, and probably 

 very rarely, except that a colony is long or often queenless, 

 as is frequently true of our nuclei, these bees are so far 

 developed as to produce eggs, which, of course, would always 

 be drone eggs. Such workers — known as fertile — were first 

 noticed by Riem, while Huber actually saw one in the act of 

 egg-laying. Except in the power to produce eggs, they seem 

 not unlike the other workers. Huber supposed that these 

 were reared in cells contiguous to royal cells, and thus received 

 royal food by accident. The fact, as stated by Mr. Quinby, , 

 that these occur in colonies where queen-larvae were never 

 reared, is fatal to the above theory. Langstroth and Berlepsch 

 thought that these bees, while larvae, were fed, though too spar- 

 ingly, with the royal aliment, by bees in need of a queen, and 

 hence the accelerated development. Such may be the true 

 explanation. Yet if, as some apiarists aver, these appear 

 where no brood has been fed, and so must be common workers, 

 changed after leaving the cell, as the result of a felt need, 



