nectar and pollen, etc. The worker is the most highly de- 

 veloped of the three forms and beyond question controls all 

 the activities of the colony. 



The queen, or sexually developed female, usually within 

 seven to ten days after maturing (exceptionally from three to 

 fifteen days), leaves the hive and flies into the open air to 

 become mated with a drone. This flight usually occurs from 

 two to four o'clock in the afternoon of a bright day. The 

 drones also are generiilly flying at this time, although most 

 of the day they remain inside the hive. She returns in from 

 ten to thirty minutes with a pail of the genitalia of the drone 

 inside and partly protruding from the hind end of her body. 

 The drone perishes in the act of copulation. The queen mates 

 but once, although she may leave the hive a number of times 

 and on successive days before becoming fertilized. When she 

 is fertilized a small sac within the body, leading from the 

 oviduct (the spermatheca), is stored with millions of sperma- 

 tozoa, the male element which fertilizes her eggs, and she 

 is capable of laying eggs so fertilized for several years. If on 

 a flight she is actually fertilized she usually begins to lay eggs 

 within from one to three days. The eggs are usually placed 

 on end at the bottom of the cells, to which they are glued fast 

 with a sticky fluid secreted at the time of deposition. These 

 eggs hatch in three days, and they appear at the bottom of 

 the cells like minute streaks floating in a milky transparent 

 jelly. The jelly is elaborated by the young worker bees of 

 the hive. The immature bee larva feeds on the jelly, which 

 is constantly supplied to it, apparently swallowing it through 

 the mouth, or as has been suggested by some writers, absorb- 

 ing it by osmosis through the skin. It grows very rapidly in 

 size and occasionally sheds its skin. On the third day of its 

 larval existence it is weaned from the jelly and put on a sub- 

 sistence of honey and pollen. It is soon large enough to fill 

 the bottom of the cell when curled up ; later, to accommodate 

 itself in the cell it must stretch lengthwise, head directed out- 

 ward. On the fifth day it has gained its full growth and the 

 cell is capped with a mixture of wax and prepared pollen- 

 The larva within tben spins a silken cocoon and its trans- 

 formation into a pupa begins. This is usually accomplished 

 on the ninth day ; later, with the formation of the legs and 

 antennae beneath the enveloping skin, the pupa begins to 

 assume the appearance of the adult insect. When the struc- 

 ture of the adult bee is fully formed, the envelope is burst, 

 the bee begins to harden and obtain its color, and on the 

 twentieth day begins to eat its way through the capping. This 



