THE QUEEN. 7 
in their hives, and the loss is small, so that most of the 
bees we had in the fall we have in the spring. 
A queen is hatched and fully developed in sixteen days 
from the time the egg is laid ; a worker or common bee re- 
quires twenty-one days, the same as a chicken. Drones re- 
quire twenty-four days to mature. The queen lays all the 
eggs produce queens, drones, and workers. There is 
a small portion of comb in the side or in the lower end of 
almost every hive, but especially in large hives, that is de- 
voted to producing drones. It is known by the cups or cells 
being larger than those devoted to rearing workers. Meas- 
uring the diameter of these cells, you find it to be one-fourth 
of an iuch — that is four to the inch, making sixteen cells to 
the. square inch, or counting both sides, thirty-two young 
drones can be reared in one square inch of comb. The part 
devoted to rearing workers gives twenty-five cells to the 
square inch, or fifty young workers to the cubic iuch, the 
cells being a half inch deep. So uniform is the size of the 
cells devoted to rearing brood, that some mathematicians 
have insisted on using them as a standard of measure. 
Cells in which queens arc reared are separate and distinct 
structures, generally about an inch long, in size and shape 
bearing a striking resemblance to a peanut. They are gen- 
erally built on the edge or lower end of a comb, the end of 
the cell projecting downward; that is, the queen stands on 
her head until she cuts her way out and is hatched. Even 
from this rude description any one may easily recognize these 
cells on turning the common box hive bottom side up_ 
When the queen is hatched the bees destroy her cell; so that 
when I am asked to show where the queen stays, I am at a , 
loss for an answer, she having no throne or palace, but is con- 
tent to make her home in any place in the hive where eggs 
arc to be laid, which is always in the centre and lower parts 
of the combs — in the height of the breeding amounting to 
more than one-half of the combs in a medium sized hive, and 
may be known by their being darker than the combs that 
are used entirely for honey. * 
Bees ordinarily have but one queen in the hive, and she is 
the mother of the whole colony. When they swarm she goes 
with the new colony, leaving no queen in the old hive ; but 
she leaves an abundance of worker eggs ; from these eggs the 
bees remaining in the liivo will proceed to rear for themselves 
