24 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



duty. Curiosity has prompted me to scrutinize thin 

 matter pretty closely, but I have failed to discovei 

 that she performs any other offi.ee iu the colony ex- 

 cept the one just indicated. I never could observe 

 that she had any care for her offspring, either feed- 

 ing them or manifesting any parental anxiety what- 

 ever fpr their welfare ; in fact, the workers, as a gen- 

 eral thing, supply her ladyship with her food, from 

 time to time, as she requires it. 



Mr. Quinby, in referring to the duties of the 

 queen, says, " the queen is the mother of the entire 

 family ; her duty appears to be only to deposit eggs 

 in the cells. I am also led to believe that the time 

 for the queen to lay eggs, and the requisite quantity, 

 is in a measure indicated by the workers — the kind 

 of food which they give her, or the quantity of it, as 

 the case may be. This, I feel quite sure, promotes 

 the rapid production and depositing of eggs in the 

 one case, and in the reverse of that a diminution, 

 even to the entire cessation thereof." I have already 

 noticed that the workers have the faculty or power 

 of rearing a queen from an egg laid in a worker cell, 

 by giving them a liberal supply of food of a peculiar 

 kind, the effect of which seems to be the full devel- 

 opment of the sex, which, if permitted to have re- 

 mained in the worker cell, and been fed on the com- 

 mon or ordinary food, it had been a worker, or a 

 partially developed female. Here we see the pow- 

 erful effects of stimulating food, for such it doubtless 

 is. Would it be unreasonable to suppose that food 

 of a similar kind, given to the perfect queen, would 



