THE HONEY BEE. II 



the enormous number of eggs laid by the queen. It has been 

 estimated that, at the height of the breeding season, a pro- 

 lific queen will lay from 2,000 to 3,000 eggs per day ; each 

 of these, before it will hatch to a worker or queen, must receive 

 its share of the seminal fluid. If a queen should not meet the 

 drone, which sometimes takes place through stress of weather, 

 she will still lay eggs, and these same eggs will hatch, but all 

 such will only produce drones, or males. This strange anomaly 

 is called parthenogenesis, or virgin breeding. We often find very 

 old queens producing but drones ; this is accounted for by the 

 fact that, the spermatheca having been emptied of its contents, 

 there are no spermatozoa to fertilise the eggs, which fertilisation 

 must take place before such eggs will produce workers or 

 queens. In this case, the bees usually supersede the queen 

 shortly before she has laid the last of the fertilised eggs ; but 

 how they can obtain a knowledge of this we are at a loss to 

 know. As great doubts have been frequently expressed by 

 many as to the possibility of there being such a condition of 

 things as virgin breeding, we give a few proofs which are 

 irrefutable. We find that unmated queens can, and do, lay 

 eggs, and these same eggs hatch, but they always produce 

 males (drones). Old queens, upon microscopical examination, 

 are always found to be destitute of spermatozoa in the sper- 

 matheca. A very celebrated microscopist, Herr von Siebold, 

 found that eggs laid in drone-cells were devoid of spermatozoa, 

 whilst others laid by the same fertilised queen, in worker-cells, 

 were found to contain spermatozoa. 



25. runctions of the Queen. — The duties of the mother 

 bee, miscalled the queen, are of paramount importance in a 

 hive. She is the life ; the success or non-success of the 

 colony rests entirely upon her prolificacy or non-prolificacy. 

 Each of the many thousands of workers, or hundreds of drones, 

 owes its existence to this bee ; she is the mother of the entire 

 colony. Remove a queen from a hive, and after a short period 

 has elapsed the bees will run about searching for her, not 

 looking much beyond the actual entrance ; but soon they will 

 settle down, and commence constructing queen-cells over several 

 young worker larvse. These will be fed very plentifully with 

 a specially prepared food, called by bee-keepers " royal jelly," 

 and by this course of feeding will, in the space of sixteen days 

 from the time the eggs — which otherwise would have pro- 

 duced workers — were laid, produce virgin queens. You will 

 note by this that not only is she the mother of workers 

 and drones, but also that of future queens. As her duties are 

 simply the reproduction of her species, a bee-keeper will note 

 the absolute necessity of having young and vigorous queens in 

 his colonies. Directly the queen's powers of reproduction begin 

 to wane, the colony must dwindle, and ultimately — if the queen 



