14 
PHYSIOLOGY OP THE THREE CLASSES. 
and by September scarcely a black bee can be found in the hive. 
In the height of honey gathering, and under the most favorable 
circumstances the queen will deposit about three thousand 
eggs per day. She is distinguished from the other bees by her 
form, color and size, being longer and darker colored upon the 
back than either drone or worker. But the Italian queen is 
much lighter colored than either the Italian drone or worker, the 
larger part of her body being of a golden yellow. 
The queen is of slender structure, with comparatively short 
wings, and is usually recognized by her measured matronly 
movements and her long, finely tapered abdomen. 
She usually lives from three to four years. If her death 
occur when there are drones in the apiary and young worker 
brood or eggs in the hive, or if she is soon to leave the hive with 
a first swarm, the workers construct large cells, supplying them 
with “royal jelly,” and the eggs or larvas that would otherwise 
have produced worker bees are developed into queens. Only 
one queen is allowed to remain in the hive. The queen has a 
curved sting, but will use it only when contending with rival 
queens, as she cannot tolerate a rival within the hive. Eggs are 
sometimes laid by the young queen before her impregnation, but 
they invariably produce drones. She usually leaves the hive 
when about five days old to meet the drones in the air for im- 
pregnation, which — once accomplished — suffices for life, as ordi- 
narily she never afterwards leaves the hive except when accom- 
panying a first swarm. The drone semen or sperm is retained 
in the spermatheca of the queen, a small sac near the point of 
her abdomen, and when laying, as the egg passes from the 
