354 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
planation. The emotions of the higher animals have 
often remarkable physical influences. Amongst many 
like facts, it may be cited that buck hares have been 
known to suckle a litter left by a doe, and a similar 
function has been performed by a negro* under 
the stimulus of strong feeling. It would appear 
that, in the beehive, the desire to have young 
to nurture brings the potency to generate progeny, 
though its incompleteness is fatal. The poor bees, 
aware that something is wrong, constantly strive to 
raise queens from the eggs the counterfeit is pro- 
viding ; in effect they secure but a dead drone, in 
a queen-cell which frequently has a most abnormal 
length. I have measured such, built by Tunisian 
bees, exactly ijin. inside, while -j^in. is about normal 
(see Fig. 43). The fertile worker ruins the colony, 
yet to detect her is next to impossible ; perhaps 
not one bee-keeper in a thousand has ever recognised 
a specimen. Removing the hive to a distant point, 
brushing off all the bees, and allowing them to fly 
back, will generally lose the little pest, as, not 
having flown previously, she will probably, get into 
the wrong hive, to pay the usurper’s penalty. Pro- 
viding the colony (where she or they are at work) 
with frames of eggs, until all the nursing capacity 
is fully occupied, will cause these pseudo-queens to 
subside, and is, I have found, the best method of 
treatment. 
Some races are far more prone to develop fertile 
workers than others, and in this respect the South 
* See “Mental Physiology” (Dr. W. B. Carpenter), and “Principles of 
Physiology ” (Power), p. 969. 
