TIE WORKER-BEE. 75 
workers is sometimes very large in a hopelessly queenless 
hive; we have seen at least a dozen laying on the same 
comb. Mr. Viallon, a noted bee-keeper of Louisiana, once 
had so many in one queenless colony, that he was able to 
send several dozen for dissection to bee-keepers in this 
country and Europe. 
(Fig. 30.) 
COMPARATIVE SIZE3 OF THE OVARIES OF QUEEN AND WORKER. 
(All magnified. From Girard.) 
A, queen ovaries; B, laying-worker ovaries; C, sterile-worker ovaries. 
177. Some persons may question the wisdom of Nature 
in endowing the workers with the means of laying drone- 
eggs, when there is no queen in the colony to be fecundated 
by them. But Nature does nothing without purpose. The 
main cause of the loss of the queen, when there is no brood 
fit to raise others (107), and therefore, no hopes of sur- 
vival for the colony, is usually the death of the young queen 
in her bridal flight (122). At some seasons, the drones 
are scarce, and a young queen may be compelled to make 
several trips before she finds one, If she gets lost, the hive 
