96 
Beekeeping 
mals known to the layman require fertilization (a union with 
one of the reproductive cells of the male) before they can 
develop, but there are many cases in which this is not neces¬ 
sary and the development of the drone bee is of this char¬ 
acter. The eggs which develop into females are, however, 
fertilized. This difference has so important a bearing on 
practical beekeeping that a discussion of it is reserved for a 
future chapter. 
The egg of the bee is a small white cylindrical object 
about -jV of an inch long, somewhat larger at one end (future 
head end) and slightly curved. It is deposited on the base 
of the cell of the comb by the queen and is fastened in place 
by a secretion. The head end of the future larva is always 
formed away from the point of attachment. The egg is 
covered by chorion, a thin, tough membrane, the surface 
of which is ridged. These ridges are, however, quite minute 
and are not so conspicuous as most illustrations of bee eggs 
would indicate. In addition to the nucleus and surrounding 
protoplasm, the bee egg contains a relatively large amount 
of non-living stored food, yolk. The embryo is formed on 
the convex side of the curve of the egg, which becomes the 
ventral side of the larva. The fate of the various parts 
of the egg is therefore in a sense determined. Because of 
the presence of so much yolk, the early cells are not clearly 
marked off from one another. 
Early embryonic development. 
Development consists of the repeated division of the egg 
cell into numbers of united cells and of the rearrangement 
and differentiation of the resulting cells to form definite 
organs. As development proceeds, the cells become more 
and more specialized until the final adult condition is reached, 
and even in the adult, certain changes in some cells continue 
through the life of the individual. As cell division (or rather, 
in this case, nuclear division, for the protoplasm is continu¬ 
ous in the early stages) progresses, the nuclei move from 
the interior to the surface. During the second half of the 
