76 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
having remained queenless for at least eight or ten days 
(109), the brood is too old to be used to raise another, 
and the colony is doomed. That other colonies may not be 
victims of similar accidents, owing to the scarcity of 
drones, Nature endows this worthless colony with the fac- 
ulty of drone-raising. 
It is by the same provision of Nature that unhealthy 
trees, on the eve of death, are seen covered with blossoms 
“and fruits. They make the strongest efforts to save their 
race from extinction, and perish afterwards. 
178. The drone-laying of worker-bees is easily discov- 
ered by the Apiarist. Their eggs are laid without order, 
some cells containing grown larve, or sealed pups, by the 
side of cells containing eggs; while the eggs of a queen are 
very regularly laid. Huber states that the fertile workers 
prefer large cells in which to deposit their drone eggs, re- 
sorting to small ones, only when unable to find those of 
greater diameter. A hive in our Apiary having much 
worker-comb, but only a small piece of drone size, a fertile 
worker filled the latter so entirely with eggs that some of 
the cells contained three or four each. 
179. Sometimes the bees do not seem to know that these 
eggs are drone-eggs, and in their eagerness to raise a queen, 
they treat some of them as such, by enlarging their cells 
and feeding them on special food (109). The poor over- 
fed drones, thus raised, usually perish in the cell (136). 
The workers soon dwindle away, and the colony perishes. 
180. They often even fail to raise any queen from brood, 
which may be given them by the Apiarist, unless some 
hatching bees are given at the same time. The latter, when 
informed of the needs of the colony, usually succeed in 
raising a queen. The introduction of a laying-queen ina 
laying-worker colony, is the best remedy. (533.) 
181. The bees of the same colony understand each other 
very well for all their necessities, and they work with an 
