CHAPTER IT. 
KINDS OF BEES COMPOSING A COLONY— BEE PRODUCTS AND 
DESCRIPTION OF COMBS— DEVELOPMENT OF BROOD. 
KINDS OF BEES IN A COLONY. 
Each colony of bees in good condition at the opening of the season 
contains a laying queen and 
some 30,000 to 40,000 worker 
bees, or six to eight quarts by 
measurement. Besides this 
there should be four, five, or 
even more combs fairly stocked 
with developing brood, with a 
good supply of honey about it. 
Drones may also be present, 
even several hundred in num- 
ber, although it is better to 
limit their production to se- 
lected hives, which in the main 
it is not difficult to accomplish. 
Under normal conditions the 
queen lays all of the eggs which 
are deposited in the hive, being 
capable of depositing under fa- 
vorable conditions as many as 
4,000 in twenty-four hours. Or- 
dinarily she mates but once, 
Hying from the hive to meet 
the drone — the male bee — high 
in the air, when five to nine 
days old generally, although 
this time varies under different 
climatic conditions as well as 
with different races. Seminal 
fluid sufficient to impregnate 
the greater number of eggs she 
will deposit during the next two or three years (sometimes even four 
or five years) is stored at the time of mating in a sac— the spermatheca, 
opening into the oviduct or egg-passage (fig. 5, s). The queen seems 
19 
Fig. 5. — Ovaries of queen and workers: A, abdomen 
of queen— under side (magnified eight times) ; P, peti- 
ole; 0,0, ovaries; hs, position tilled by honey saO; ds, 
position through which digestive system passes: (>cf. 
oviduct: CO.d, common oviduct; E. egg-passing ovi- 
duct; «, spermatheca; i. Intestine; po, poison bag; 
p.g, poison gland; St, Bting; p. palpi. B, rudimentary 
ovaries of ordinary worker; «p, rudimentary sperma- 
theca. ('. partially developed ovaries of fertile 
worker; sp, rudimentary .•spermatheca. (From Ches- 
hire.) 
