142 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



then supply the larva with a milky food supposed to be a mixture of pollen 

 and honey partially digested in the stomachs of the workers, and called by 

 bee masters " Royal Jelly." The substance is given sumptuously to the 

 larva and about eight days after the egg has been deposited, the cup or lid 

 of the acorn-like cell is sealed, after which the larva rapidly undergoes trans- 

 formation and in about eight or nine days thereafter, say 16 or 17 in all, so 

 that there are four days in the egg formation, four in the larva and eight in 

 the pupa, she makes her appearance amongst them as their queen. She is 

 easily recognised among a crowd of workers from the great length of her 

 abdomen which tapers to a point, her head is rounder, her trunk more slender, 

 more elegant, and much shorter, her legs are longer and without the pollen 

 basket, and her wings are not more than half the length of her body and she 

 is also different in colour from the rest of the colony. We have now traced 

 her course until it is time for her to take her wedding tight. Feeling that 

 she is of far more importance to the colony than other bees, she walks out on 

 to the alighting board with a queenly step, she notes all the points with ex- 

 actness, then makes a small circle in the air coming back to the alighting 

 board, she afterwards repeats this circle extending it each time, but should 

 a cloud come across the sun it is enough to send her home for that day, and 

 a change of weather may postpone the wedding tour even for ten days, al- 

 though in ordinary cases they generally begin laying on the eighth or ninth 

 day. After she knows her home she ventures out boldly, and fertilization 

 takes place on the wing. After a successful flight, she returns often with the 

 organs of the drone remaining attached to her bod\. This accomplished she 

 goes quietly into the hive having no wish to leave it thereafter. Should you 

 have the good fortune to see her next day, all trace of the appendages will 

 possibly be a shrivelled thread, and in a day or two after she is found busy 

 depositing eggs. From her birth till this time she shows wonderful activity, 

 running all over the hive, and difficult to catch ; but now she walks slowly 

 and sedately, the abdomen swells and she quietly settles down to the business 

 of her life. 



DRONES. 



Drones are the male bees and their mission seems to be fertilization of 

 young queens. They usually appear at the end of April or beginning of 

 May, and their numbers vary from two to three hundred in one hive. They 

 are generally about one-third larger than the worker bees, are darker in colour, 

 possess neither poison-bag nor sting, have a deep bass hum, have no pollen 

 basket, and are not fitted for the internal econcmy of the hive beyond keep- 

 ing up the temperature, which, however, in tiis variable climate is very 



