BEE-KEEPING. 29 



has been differentiated will be laid in a queen-cell, and its inmate 

 will be perfect and complete. If it is to become a worker-bee, the 

 egg will be laid in a worker-cell, and its inmate will be perfect, 

 but incomplete. By perfect and complete I mean a female that is 

 capable of reproducing a colony of bees — queen, drones, and work- 

 ers. By perfect and incomplete we mean that inmate of the 

 hive which is wrongly termed a neuter. 



Nevertheless this neuter is equally as perfect as the queen, 

 but is physically incapable of reproducing her species, being 

 deprived by nature of the power of fecundation. To term a 

 working-bee a neuter is scientifically and grammatically wrong. 



The eggs laid in the queen and worker-cells must undergo the 

 sexual change above referred to. Sometimes eggs that have not 

 thus been feminised are laid in worker-cells ; such eggs always 

 produce drones. They are known by their cappings being much 

 elongated. Working-bees do not appear to discover the queen's 

 error till too late, or they are satisfied to "leave well alone." 

 Working-bees have the power of removing the eggs from one cell 

 fco another. This may easily be demonstrated by removing in the 

 spring-time a frame of brood-comb containing eggs from the 

 centre to the sides of the hive. The morning following the eggs 

 will all have been removed elsewhere. When the queen lays a 

 drone-egg in a worker's cell they (the workers) prepare for the 

 development of the masculine inmate accordingly. Not by the 

 removal of the interloper to a drone-cell, but bv increasing the 

 capacity of the one it is already occupying longitudinally. What 

 the inmate loses in girth is made up in length. 



A bee-egg is cylindrical, rounded at each end, one end being 

 rather larger than the other. The larger end may be termed the 

 head of the egg, as the head of the inmate develops at this point. 

 When an egg is laid in a queen's cell it is attached to the base of 

 that cell, i.e., the part opposite to the cell-mouth, and at first 

 hangs perpendicularly within and parallel to its sides. As the 

 egg develops and advances towards maturity it inclines more and 

 more towards a horizontal position, and some hours before the little 

 prisoner is liberated from its captivity it lies at right angles to the 

 sides of the cell. From the laying of the egg to the hatching 

 usually occupies about three clear days. The newly-hatched grub 

 or larva now becomes the recipient of unceasing feeding. The 

 workers are all attention to supply this new-born babe with "royal 

 jelly" till she literally floats in it. This food termed "royal jelly" 

 has to sustain the young queen during her larval stage. She is 



