24- Texas Department of Agriculture. 



A normal colony of bees consists of several thousand to upwards of 

 sixty thousand worker bees, a few hundred drones, and one queen, or, 

 more correctly speaking, the mother of the hive. The queen is a fully 

 developed female and lays the eggs from which all the other inmates 

 of the hive are born. She is capable of laying eggs which produce 

 either drones or workers, and is probably able to control fertilization 

 of the egg which determines sex. ]\Iany more worker eggs are laid, 

 which are always fertilized and are deposited in worker-size cells in 

 the combs, while the drone eggs, very much le-s in number, are un- 

 fertilized eggs usually laid in drone-size cells. Under certain condi- 

 tions, they may also be laid in worker cells. 



WORKER BEES. 



The great mass of the members of a colony are worker bees, whose 

 duties are to defend the hive, for which they are each provided with a 

 sting; to clean and ventilate it; to rear young; to gather food and 

 water, bee glue or propolis; to secrete wax; build comb, and attend 

 to all necessary work of the hive. The worker bees are undeveloped 

 females. Their female organs are not as fully developed as those of 

 the queen; but, under certain conditions, they may lay eggs, which, 

 however, produce only drones. These bees are known as "laying 

 workers," and the condition under which they appear is when a col- 

 ony is hopelessly queenless for a long time and the bees have no way 

 of rearing a queen. Certain workers then begin to lay eggs, with the 

 hope of restoring the colony. The egg laying of these workers is very 

 irregular and scattered about the combs, with several, to a large num- 

 ber of, eggs placed irregularly in each cell. This, together with the 

 drone brood in the worker cells, which can be easily distinguished 

 by the drone brood cappings which stick out 

 from the combs like little hemispheres, unlike 

 the nearly flat capings of normal v\^orker brood, 

 is a good sign of the presence of laying work- 

 ers. However, the occurrence of moi-e than one 

 egg in a cell is not always a sure sign, as a good 

 queen may put several eggs in a cell when first 

 commencing to lay, or early in the season, 

 but only for a short time, after which they are 

 laid in the most regular succession in each cell. 

 The fact among bees that virgin queens, lay- 



Worker Bee. ing workers, and even fertile queens caA lav 



. , unfertilized eggs which will live and produce 



drones is known ms /'arthrnogeiicsis, reproduction without fertilization 

 found among many forms of insect life 



DEVELOPMENT OP BEES. 



There are three stages of development, or metamorphosis, in bees as 

 w:th all msects, before the fourth stage, or final grown insect,' is 

 reached-the egg, larva and pupa. The egg, very small and oblon^ in 

 shape, can be easily seen with the naked eye, adhering by its smaller 



