LAYING WORKERS 
566 
ony, from any cause, become queenless, be 
sure it has unsealed brood of the proper 
age to raise a queen; and when one is 
raised, see that she becomes fertile. It 
can never do any harm to give a queenless 
colony eggs and brood, and it may be the 
saving of it. But suppose one has been so 
careless as to allow a colony to become 
queenless and get weak, what is he to do"? 
If he attempts to give them a queen, and 
laying workers are present, she will be 
pretty sure to be killed; it is sometimes 
difficult to get them to accept even a queen¬ 
cell. The poor bees get into a habit of 
accepting the egg-laying workers as a 
queen, and they will have none other until 
they are removed; yet they can not be 
found, for they are just like any other 
bee; one may get hold of them, possibly,' 
by carefully noticing the way in which the 
other bees deport themselves toward them, 
or one may catch them in the act of egg- 
laying; but even this often fails, for there 
may be several such in the hive at once. 
A strip of comb containing eggs and brood 
may be given them, but they will seldom 
start a good queen-cell, if they start any 
at all; for, in the majority of cases, a col¬ 
ony having laying workers seems perfectly 
demoralized, so far as getting into regular 
work is concerned. 
It is difficult to introduce a laying queen 
to such colonies; for as soon as she is re¬ 
leased from the cage she may be stung to 
death. No better results would follow 
from introducing an ordinary virgin; but 
the giving of a queen-cell, or a just- 
emerged virgin, if the colony has not been 
too long harboring laying workers, will 
very often bring about a change for the 
better. In such cases the cell will be ac¬ 
cepted, and in due course of time there 
will be a laying queen in place of the laying 
worker or workers; but often cells will be 
destroyed as fast as they are given. Some 
have recommended to scatter brood and 
bees among several other colonies, perhaps 
one or two frames in each. From each of 
these same colonies take a frame or two of 
brood with adhering bees, and put them 
into the laying-worker hive. The bees of 
this hive, • which have been scattered into 
several hives, will for the most part return; 
but the laying worker or workers will re¬ 
main and in all probability be destroyed 
in the other hives. Of course, the colonies 
that have been robbed of good brood will 
suffer somewhat; but if it is after the hon¬ 
ey season, no great harm will have been 
done. They will proceed to clean up the 
combs; and if they do not need the drones 
they will destroy them. 
While it is difficult, as has just been 
stated, to introduce a queen to a colony that 
has laying workers it can be done, but no 
valuable queen should be used for the pur¬ 
pose. To introduce to laying workers use 
either the Miller smoke method or the 
Smith introducing cage as explained under 
Introducing. 
See that every hive contains at all times, 
during the spring and summer months at 
least, brood suitable for rearing a queen, 
and laying workers will not appear. 
HOW TO DETECT THE PRESENCE OF LAYING 
WORKERS. 
If no queen is found and eggs are scat¬ 
tered around promiscuously, some in drone 
and some in worker cells, some attached to 
the side of the cell, instead of the center of 
the bottom, where the queen lays them, 
several in one cell and none in the next, it 
may be assumed that laying workers are 
present. Still later, if the worker-brood 
is capped with the high convex cappings, 
it indicates clearly drone brood. Finding 
two or more eggs in a cell is never con¬ 
clusive, for the queen often so deposits 
them in a weak colony where there are not 
bees enough to cover the brood. The eggs 
deposited by a fertile queen are usually in 
regular order, as one would plant a field of 
corn; but those from laying workers, and 
usually from drone-laying queens, are ir¬ 
regularly scattered about. 
LEVTJLOSE. —See Honey. 
LIME.— See Alfalfa and Clover. 
LIMA BEAN (Pirn seolus lunatus.) — 
Seventy-five per cent of all the beans har¬ 
vested in the United States are grown in 
California, and more than 50 per cent of 
the entire crop comes from the southwest¬ 
ern counties of Ventura, Orange, Santa 
Barbara, and San Diego. In 1920 Ven¬ 
tura County reported 66,000 tons, Orange 
County 25,000 tons, Santa Barbara County 
13,000 tons and San Diego County 11,000 
