88 STRANGE FACTS ABOUT QUEENS 



with wax and pollen as soon as they have attained 

 their full growth. It would seem that at the end 

 of the week, when their function as nurses ceases, 

 the secretion which enables them to prepare the 

 food ceases, and they are unable to provide it 

 any longer. If a colony of bees which had lost 

 its queen, and been without for two or three weeks, 

 were given a frame of eggs, it might possibly 

 succeed in rearing a queen, but, owing to the 

 insufficiency of the rich food-supply, she would 

 be of very inferior quality, so that those who make 

 a speciality of rearing queens for market are 

 careful to raise them in colonies which have plenty 

 of nurse bees. For the first three days of their 

 lives, all young grubs are fed with the special 

 food, but at the end of this time worker grubs 

 are weaned, and for the rest of the time exist on 

 plain honey and pollen. Queen grubs, however, 

 are fed for the whole of their lives on the richer 

 food, and it is this alone which transforms them 

 from ordinary worker bees into fully developed 

 females. 



Sometimes it happens that a colony which has 

 lost its queen is found to be still in possession 

 of brood, although it does not appear to make 

 much headway, and indeed dwindles to almost 

 the same extent as an entirely queenless colony. 

 This was a rather puzzling circumstance for some 

 time, until it was at last discovered that it was an 

 ordinary worker bee which was laying these eggs. 



