20 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
tined to become a queen, however, is continued upon this glandular 
secretion or royal jelly, as it is called, and the cell enlarged and built 
down to permit the proper growth of the inmate. A large quantity 
of the royal jelly is then deposited in the cell and the cell is sealed 
up. In seven days, under this rich food the queen emerges. After 
several days, usually not longer than a week, the young virgin 
queen flies out to meet the drone and returns fertilized for life and 
soon begins to deposit eggs. 
The male or drone bees, as has been said, come from unfertilized 
eggs and so can be produced by a virgin queen or at will by a fer- 
tilized queen. The egg hatches in three days and, after three days 
of feeding upon the royal jelly, the larva is fed honey and pollen for 
three more days when it pupates. After fifteen days in the quies- 
cent or pupal stage the grown beé emerges. Drones are usually 
only to be found during the spring and early summer months when 
there are young queens to be fertilized. Late in the summer, when 
the honey harvest wanes, the workers drive out the proverbially 
lazy drones and worry and starve them to death. 
It is not to be inferred from the fact of the workers being class- 
ed as undeveloped females, that they are in any sense, except in re- 
productive powers, the inferior of the queen. In fact, they are much 
more highly developed in almost all other directions, of necessity, 
in order to perform their manifold duties. The drones are believed 
to excel the queen in powers of sight and scent. This is found to 
be in keeping with the fact that they have to seek out the virgin: 
queens upon their bridal flight. 
Each colony normally swarms each spring. Queen cells are 
started as described, usually about a dozen or so according to the 
strength of the colony. When the first cell is sealed, the swarm 
composed of all the bees that can fly, together with the old queen, 
issue forth. This usually takes place between nine o’clock and noon, 
a swarm rarely issuing after one o’clock unless unfavorable weather 
has kept the bees in. Just previous to swarming the bees gorge 
themselves with honey and are not inclined in the least to sting. 
The swarming note is a peculiar resonant one and, if there are any 
other colonies in the vicinity ready to swarm, they are liable to 
take up the note, and running excitedly about the entrance, begin 
to pile out like beans poured from a peck measure. After circling 
about in the air a very few minutes, the queen lights and the bees 
