76 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



having remained queenless for at least eight or ten days 

 (109), the brood is too old to be used to raise another, 

 and the colony is doomed. That other colonies may not be 

 victims of similar accidents, owing to the scarcity of 

 drones. Nature endows this worthless colony with the fac- 

 ulty of drone-raising. 



It is by the same provision of Nature that unhealthy 

 trees, on the eve of death, are seen covered with blossoms 

 and fruits. They make the strongest efforts to save their 

 race from extinction, and perish afterwards. 



178. The drone-laying of worker-bees is easily discov- 

 ered by the Apiarist. Their eggs are laid without order, 

 some cells containing growQ larvse, or sealed pupae, by the 

 side of cells containing eggs ; while the eggs of a queen are 

 very regularly laid. Huber states that the fertile workers 

 prefer large cells in which to deposit their drone eggs, re- 

 sorting to small ones, only when unable to find those of 

 greater diameter. A hive in our Apiary having much 

 worker-comb, but only a small piece of drone size, a fertile 

 worker filled the latter so entirely with eggs that some of 

 the cells contained three or four each. 



179. Sometimes the bees do not seem to know that these 

 eggs are drone-eggs, and in their eagerness to raise a queen, 

 they treat some of them as such, by enlarging their cells 

 and feeding them on special food (109). The poor over- 

 fed drones, thus raised, usually perish in the cell (136). 

 The workers soon dwindle away, and the colony perishes. 



180. They often even fail to raise any queen from brood, 

 which may be given them by the Apiarist, unless some 

 hatching bees are given at the same time. The latter, when 

 informed of the needs of the colony, usually succeed in 

 raising a queen. The introduction of a laying-queen in a 

 laying- worker colony, is the best remedy. (633.) 



181. The bees of the same colony understand each other 

 very well for all their necessities, and they work with an 



