Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/510

494 attended with insuperable difficulties. The abdomen of a queen that is uniinpregnated is much more slender than that of one which is completely fertile ; but, on dissection, the ovaries are found expanded and full of ova.

One of the most remarkable facts concerning the genera tion of bees, is the existence occasionally of prolific workers, the discovery of which we owe to Reims. Although it was doubted by Bonnet, its reality has been fully confirmed oy the researches of Huber and subsequent observers, and it explains what was before inexplicable the production of eggs in hives absolutely destitute of a queen. It is also remarkable that the eggs thus produced are always those of drones, but this is explained by the fact that these fertile workers have not received, and, in fact, are unable to receive, impregnation from the drone. The origin of these abnormal egg-layers is accounted for from their having passed the larva state in cells contiguous to the royal ones, and from their having at an early period devoured some portion of the stimulating jelly which was destined for the nourishment of the royal brood, their ovaries thus receiving a partial development ; or when a colony is deprived of its queen late in the autumn, and an attempt to raise a queen from some unknown cause has failed, a larva has sufficiently advanced to develop into a fertile worker.

As soon as a sufficient number of cells have been con structed, the queen begins to deposit her eggs. Unlike most insects the queen-bee deposits eggs tea or eleven months in the year in temperate climates, although it is probable this is not the case when the winter is much more severe than in Britain. Young queens ordinarily commence ovipositing thirty-six hours after impregnation. What power, if any, the queen has in determining the sex of her eggs is unknown, but, as already noticed, eggs that will produce workers or queens will always be found laid in worker cells, and those that will produce drones will also be found in their appropriate cells. A queen of a new swarm will rarely produce drones the first year ; instinct, seemingly, teaching her they will not be required. In the early spring, if a clean empty piece of drone comb be put into the centre of the brood nest, the queen will usually fill it with drone eggs, and this circumstance is taken advantage of by scientific apiarians to secure a supply of drones for the impregnation of early hatched queens. When the eggs are about to hatch, the bees eagerly seek for that species of nourishment on which the larvae are to be fed. This con sists of pollen with a proportion of honey and water, which is partly digested in the stomach of the bees, and made to vary in its quality according to the age of the young. The egg of a bee is of a lengthened oval shape with a slight curvature and of a bluish white colour. It is hatched without requiring any particular attention on the part of the bees, except that a proper temperature be kept up, in which case three days are sufficient for the exclusion of the larva. This has the appearance of a small white worm without feet, which remains generally coiled up at the bottom of the cell. The bees feed it with great assiduity with the kind of chyle above described, and in every respect exhibit towards it the greatest care and atten tion. Hunter says a young bee might easily be brought up by any person who would be attentive to feed it. As it grows up it casts its cuticle like the larvse of other insects. In the course of five or six days it has attained its full size, and nearly fills the cell in which it is lodged. - It now ceases to eat, and the bees close up its cell with a covering of wax, or rather an admixture of wax and propolis, which they possess the art of amalgamat ing. During the next thirty-six hours the larva is engaged in spinning its cocoon, and in three days more it assumes the pupa state. It is now perfectly white, and every part of the future bee may be distinguished through its trans parent covering. In the course of a week it tears asunder its investing membrane, and makes its way through the outer wall of its prison in its perfect form. Reckoning from the time that the egg is laid, it is only on the twenty-first day of its existence that this last metamorphosis is completed. No sooner has it thus emancipated itself than its guardians assemble round it, caress it with their tongues, and supply it plentifully with food. They clean out the cell which it had been occupying, leaving untouched, however, the greater part of the web, which thus serves to bind together still more firmly the sides of the comb. The colour of the bee when it quits the cell is a light grey. For several days, sometimes a week or two after birth, the worker bees occupy themselves within the hive, not flying abroad during that time, their principal employment then being that of nurses ; and many old observers thought them a different class altogether from the honey-gatherers and wax-makers. The metamorphosis of the male bee follows the same course, but requires four days longer for its completion, occupying twenty-five days from the time of the egg being laid to the attainment of the perfect state.

When from the egg or young larva it is the intention of the bees to raise a queen, their attention is more incessantly bestowed upon it, the cell being enlarged as elsewhere described. It is supplied with a peculiar kind of food, which appears to be more stimulating than that of ordinary bees. It has not the same mawkish taste, and is evidently acid. It is furnished to the royal larva in greater quantities than can be consumed, so that a portion always remains behind in the cell after the transformation. As a proof that any worker egg or young larva not more than three days old may be made to produce a queen, the experimenter has only to supply to such an one a portion of royal jelly, and the nurses will enlarge its cell and continue so to feed it, when in due time a queen will be produced. The growth of the larva and the development of all its organs are very much accelerated by this treatment, so that in five days it is prepared to spin its web, and the bees enclose it by building up a wall at the mouth of its cell. The web is completed in twenty-four hours ; two days and a half are spent in a state of inaction, and then the larva transforms itself into a pupa. It remains between four and five days in this state, and thus on the sixteenth day after the egg has been laid, the perfect insect is produced. When this change is about to take place, the bees gnaw away part of the wax covering of the cell till at last it becomes pellucid from its extreme thinness. This not only must facilitate the exit of the bee, but may possibly be useful in permitting the evaporation of the superabundant fluids.

But the queen bee, although perfectly formed, is not always at liberty to come out of her prison, for if the queen-mother be still in the hive waiting a favourable state of the weather to lead forth another swarm, the bees do not suffer the young queens to stir out ; they even strengthen the covering of the cell by an additional coating of wax, perforating it with a small hole through which the prisoner can thrust out her tongue in order to be fed by those who guard her. The royal prisoners continually utter a kind of plaintive cry, called by bee-keepers &quot; piping,&quot; and this appears to be answered by the mother queen. The modulations of this piping are said to vary. The motive of this proceeding on the part of the bees who guard them is to be found in the implacable hatred which the old queen bears against all those of her own sex, and which impels her to destroy without mercy all the young queens that come within her reach. The workers are on this account very solicitous to prevent her even approaching the royal cells while there is any prospect of a swarm being about 