20 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE THREE CLASSES. 



and by September scarcely a black bee can be found in the hive. 

 In the height of honey gathering, and under the most favorable 

 circumstances the queen will deposit about three thousand 

 eggs per day. She is distinguished from the other bees by her 

 form, color and size, being longer and darker colored upon tho 

 back than either drone or worker. But the Italian queen is 

 much lighter colored than either the Italian drone or worker, the 

 larger part of her body being of a golden yellow. 



The queen is of slender structure, with comparatively short 

 wings, and is usually recognized by her measured matronly 

 movements and her long, finely tapered abdomen. 



She usually lives from three to four years. If her death 

 occur when there are drones in the apiary and young worker 

 brood or eggs in the hive, or if she is soon to leave the hive with 

 a first swarm, the workers construct large cells, supplying them 

 with "royal jelly," and the eggs or larvae that would otherwise 

 have produced worker bees are developed into queens. Only 

 one queen is allowed to remain in the hive. The queen has a 

 curved sting, but will use it only when contending with rival 

 queens, as she cannot tolerate a rival within the hive. Eggs are 

 sometimes laid by the young queen before her impregnation, but 

 they invariably produce drones. She usually leaves the hivo 

 when about five days old to meet the drones in the air for im- , 

 pregnation, which — once accomplished — suffices for life, as ordi- 

 narily she never afterwards leaves the hive except when accom- 

 panying a first swarm. The drone semen or sperm is retained 

 in the spermatheca of the queen, a small sac near the point of 

 her abdomen, and when laying, as the egg passes from the 



