284 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
the Ionian Islands, in a remote antiquity, practised 
rudely the art of queen-raising, by adopting methods 
which induced the bees to convert into queens some 
of those eggs which had been laid in worker-cells, 
and which would have, naturally, yielded workers only. 
Bee larvae, male and female, when they leave the 
egg, are not fed on a mixture of pollen, honey, and 
water, as is so constantly asserted — for they are then 
too small and tender to deal with pollen grains as a 
portion of their food — nor are they fed upon regur- 
gitated material, as was taught by Dufour; but they 
receive from the nurse bees a secretion, which is truly 
a milk, from a gland carried in the head, and which, in 
the nurses, is extremely active (No. i, Fig. 16, Vol. I.) 
Those larvae intended for workers or drones undergo 
weaning, the former being the more quickly deprived 
of the highly nitrogenous food just referred to, and for 
which is then substituted pollen, honey, and water — 
the pollen containing non-digestible and waste 
matters, which collect in the blind bowel, and subse- 
quently stain the comb of a dark colour. The queen- 
expectant is practically not weaned, but is fed on 
with copious supplies of secretion diet, added with- 
out stint by the workers crowding on her cell, and 
ever inserting their heads, in order that they may add 
their little quota of nutrition to the lucky baby. This 
nutrition collects far above the immediate needs of 
the insect; although, probably, the great amount in 
which it is given is necessary to retain moisture and 
permit of endosmose (feeding by absorption) long 
after the cell is sealed. The so-called “royal jelly,” 
then, is given to all bees alike at their birth. It is 
