EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES 103 



unsatisfactory place in which to pass the cold, damp 

 days. And suppose the honeyflow fails, as it not 

 seldom does fail, just when that swarm is well 

 started in its new home. There may be days, 

 and even weeks, wherein nothing is yielded by the 

 flowers. The workers dwindle and die, and no 

 young ones are reared to take their place. If the 

 weather mends later, the flowers have perhaps 

 ceased to give nectar in any quantity, and the 

 result, the inevitable result, is starvation before 

 the winter has passed. Even if such a colony 

 braves all those perils, when the cold winds of 

 spring begin to blow and the workers go abroad 

 in numbers for forage, they are lost in hundreds 

 and the colony dwindles away. How much more 

 satisfactory to lie completely dormant during the 

 dead months, even if the opening days of spring 

 mean hard, single-handed labour ! 



Or again, suppose in the very opening days of 

 the year, in February or March, the one solitary 

 queen dies. There may be larvas young enough 

 from which to rear another, but where are the 

 drones who are to complete the work ? It is a well- 

 established fact that unless a queen is mated within 

 a limited time of her emergence, she becomes 

 incapable of fertilisation and a drone breeder, 

 producing a race of useless members, so far as 

 carrying on the work of the colony is con- 

 cerned. 



It must never be overlooked when thinking of 



