74 AUSTRALASIAN 



The transformations of the queen larva are completed in 

 seven days from the closing of the cell, so that on the sixteenth 

 day from the laying of the egg (six days shorter than the 

 period for the worker, and nine days shorter than that for the 

 drone) the fully developed queen emerges from the cell. 



The only other matter to be noticed in this place is the 

 exceptional development of a queen bee from an egg or young 

 larva originally laid in. a worker cell. This takes place in 

 abnormal cases only where the hive has suddenly become queen- 

 less. As soon as their loss is discovered by the workers, they 

 proceed to build queen cells over worker eggs, or over larvae not 

 more than three days old. They select a cell for the purpose, with 

 the egg or very young larva in it ; they break down the parti- 

 tions of the adjoining cells, and so make room for the base of 

 a queen cell, which they proceed to build in the usual manner, 

 and to feed the larva with the usual royal jelly, and in due 

 course of time a developed queen is produced. The subjoined 

 figure shows the appearance of such queen cells built over ordi- 

 nary cells. The ordinary worker cells, with eggs in them, are 



Fig. 23.— WEEN CELLS BTTLLT OVER WORKER CELLS. 



shown at A ; B is a queen cell partly built ; and C one completed 

 and closed. D shows a case, which sometimes occurs, of a queen 

 cell built over drone brood. Such cells — which maybe known 

 by the absence of indentations on their outer surfaces — are of 

 course useless, as the nature of the drone egg is not altered by 

 the form of the cell or the quality of the food given to the larva. 

 This phenomenon of queens being reared from worker larvse 

 causedmuch astonishment when it was first observed by Schirach 



