THE BEE-MILK MYSTERY 205 
results. We are able, therefore, to say positively 
that most of the classic marvels of bee-life are built 
up on this one determined issue, this one logical 
adjustment of cause and effect. The hive creates 
thousands of sexless workers and only one fertile 
mother-bee. It limits the number of its offspring 
according to the visible food supplies or the needs 
of the commonwealth. It brings into existence, 
when necessity calls for them, hundreds of male bees 
or drones, and when their period of usefulness is 
over it decrees their extermination. When the 
queen’s fecundity declines, it raises another queen 
to take her place. It can even, under certain rare 
conditions of adversity, manufacture what is known 
as a fertile worker, when some mischance has 
deprived it of its mother-bee and the materials for 
providing a legitimate successor to her are not 
forthcoming. And all these results are primarily 
brought about by the one means, the one vehicle of 
mystery—this wonderful bee-milk playing its part 
at all stages in the honey-bee’s life from her cradle 
to her grave. 
For to track down this subtly-compounded elixir 
through all its various uses one must take a survey 
of almost the whole round of activities in the hive. 
The food of the young larve, whether of queen or 
worker, for the first three days after the eggs are 
hatched, seems to consist entirely of bee-milk. The 
drone-grub gets an extra day of this richly 
nitrogenous diet. And for the remaining two days 
of the grub stage of the bee’s life milk is given 
continuously, but, in the case of the worker and 
drone, in greatly diminished supply. Its place 
during these two days is largely taken, it is said, by 
