The greater part of the life of the queen or mother B. is spent in laying eggs for the increase of the population of the hive; and this increase goes on at a rapid rate, as the queen not unfrequently lays 300 eggs in a day. The number, however, varies greatly. In cold weather it is very small. but the invariable presence of brood in different stages, in a well-stocked hive, proves that some eggs are laid even in winter. During the later spring months the number is very great; many practical apiarians considering that as many as 1000, or even 2000, are deposited daily. The community, however, is not destined to an indefinite increase; but in certain circumstances, swarming takes place, and new colonies are founded.
The impregnation of the queen takes place in the air, and usually within a few days after she herself has emerged from the cell. It is the only occasion of her ever leaving the hive, eccept that of swarming, and there is no repetition of it during her whole life. The question has therefore been asked, why there are so many males in a B. community; but no very.satisfactory answer has been given to it. The males are not known to fulfill any other purpose than that of the propagation of their species; and after the swarming season is over, the greater part of them are ruthlessly massacred by the workers, as if in dread of their consuming, too much of the common store. The greater part of the workers themselves are supposed scarcely to live for a year; the duration of the life of queen bees is often more than three 'ears.
The queen ll.,.wheit about to begin to lay eggs, is the object of great attention on the part of the workers, and so continues. She moves about in the hive, attended by a sort of retinue of about 10 or 15 workers, by some of which she is frequently supplied with honey. But the name of queen B. appears to have originated in a mistaken notion that something analogous to a monarchy subsists in the bee-hive; and imagination being per mitted very free scope, many things have been invested with a false coloring derived from this analogy. The queen or mother B. appears to be the object of particular regard, as indispensable to the objects for which the B. community subsists, and to which the instincts of all its members are variously directed. She moves about, depositing her eggs in the cells which the workers have prepared, and they are ready to take charge of each egg from the moment that it is deposited. Her employment requires that she should be fed with food collected by others, and many of the workers are in like manner supplied with food whilst busy within the hive, as well as the larva., in the cells; but there is no evidence whatever of anything like authority exercised by the queen, or, indeed, of any superiority of one over another in the whole multitude.
The queen B. at first lays eggs which give birth to workers, and afterwards there takes place a laving of eggs which become drones. With unerring instinct, she places each egg in of cell appropriate to it whilst also, at the proper time, cells of the proper kind are prepared beforehand by the workers, the drones' cells being larger than the workers' cells. The cells in which future queens are to be reared are very unlike all the others, but the eggs differ in no respect from those deposited in workers' cells. It is a curious circumstance, that queens, of which the fecundation has been prevented till they are considerably older than usual, lay only drone eggs. It occasionally also happens that some of the worker bees lay eggs, and these invariably produce drones.
The eggs of bees are of a long shape and bluisli-white color, about one twelfth of an inch in length. They are hatched in about three days. The larva are little worm like creatures, having no feet, and lying coiled up like a ring: they are diligently fed by the working bees, until, in about five days, when large enough nearly to fill the cell, they refuse food, upon which the attendant bees seal up the cell with wax, and the larva, spinning itself a fine silken envelope or cocoon, is transformed into a pupa; and about the 18th day—or, in the case of drones, the 24th day—from the deposition of the egg, the young B., in its perfect state, breaks the covering, and issues from the cell. It is caressed and supplied with food by the attendant bees, and is believed not to try its wings until the following day. Tile cell from which a young B. has issued is speedily cleaned out, and prepared for the reception of another egg or of honey. The tine silken envelope of the pupa, however, remains attached to the cell, of which the capacity thus becomes gradually smaller, until the cells of old combs are too small to receive eggs, and can be used for honey alone, a fact of which the importance in rela tion to the economical management of bees is obvious:—The spinneret, by means of which the larva spins the cocoon, is a small organ connected with the mouth.—The food with which the larva; are supplied is a mixture of pollen, honey, and water, with the addition, possible, of some secretion from the stomachs of the working bees, in which it is prepared. it varies a little, according to the age and kind of the larva. and the peculiarities of that given to young queens appear to he indispensable to their fitness for their future functions. Polk, is constantly found stored up in the cells of the hive. and is often called bee-bread. :Host people have metwith such cells in honey-comb, and have observed the bitter and peculiar taste of the contents.