BREEDING. 
17 
maturing progeny, we are constrained 'to regard them as the 
most wonderful class of this insect family. The average age of 
the worker is but a few weeks during summer, and from six to 
nine months during the cooler part of the year. 
As regards the sex of the workers, modern writers agree in 
classing them as undeveloped females. They are incapable of 
fertilization by the drone, yet, occasionally in queenless colonies, 
one will be found laying eggs, which, being unfertilized, nevei 
produce workers but drones only. 
This laying need not be mistaken as the work of a fertile queen, 
for, unlike her uniform laying, these eggs are deposited regard- 
less of order, some cells containing several and others none. The 
bees destroy the excess, and the remaining eggs produce perfect 
drones. 
Hie workers are so well known that a minute description 
would seem superfluous in a Hand Book. Upon them devolves 
all the labor of collecting and defending the stores, building 
comb, feeding and protecting the queen and brood, and expelling 
the drones when they are no longer necessary to the well-being 
of the colony. In short, they rule and regulate the whole econ- 
omy of the hive, performing all its offices except those which 
have direct reference to the reproduction of the species. 
BREEDING. 
The yield of honey, strength of the colony, the season of the 
year, and other circumstances have considerable influence, both 
on the amount of brood reared and the time required for its de- 
t elopment. In this latitude, the average time from the laving of 
