RAISING AND INTRODUCTION OF QUEENS. 289 
The serious disadvantage of queenlessness we have 
already noticed; and when bees discover this to be 
their condition, in hot haste to replace the lost one, 
they may (and all the races, save, perhaps, Cyprians, 
frequently do) select larvae which have already passed 
the age of weaning, and are, consequently, beyond 
that fork in the road of development which divides 
the path of queens from that of workers. The 
distinctive organs of the latter are therefore already 
in progress, and, although a new turn is taken, and a 
queen is, in the end, produced, she is not of the 
highest type; and those so formed, while having less 
than the normal number of ovarian (egg-bearing) 
tubes, I have found to possess well-marked indica- 
tions of the gland No. i, which is especially the 
property of the worker, for she alone has to feed 
brood ; but all perfect queens, started from the egg, 
are as truly devoid of this gland as is the drone 
himself (Vol. I., page 81). The fact that queens are 
started from the egg in normal queen-cells is sug- 
gestive ; but, in addition, it is noticeable that the 
amount of food given in the queen-cup exceeds that 
supplied to a worker, even at the initial steps, so 
that the argument in favour of securing queens which 
received their promotion directly after leaving the 
egg, needs no enforcement. Worker larvae between 
two and three days old are capable of being con- 
verted into VQs^QcX.dih\G.-looking queens ; but Mr. Doo- 
little is stated by Professor Cook to have known 
queens to be reared from worker larvae taken at 
four and a half days after hatching. In this case, the 
cells adjacent to the one containing the selected 
Vol. II. U 
