The honey-bee: its nature, homes and products

by William Hetherington Harris

It is only in very rare instances (such as those we have mentioned when speaking of the introduction of a stranger-queen) that the workers attack and kill royalty. Queens, on the other hand, are never known to use their stings against their subjects. They reserve them for combats with their equals, thus realising the salutary arrangement, which might have such practically important political consequences if adopted in human affairs, "Let those who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight."

The queen, though developed more rapidly than the drones and the workers, enjoys a much longer life than her subjects. In some instances this period has been known to extend to five or even six years; but her fecundity is said to diminish after her second year, or, if it continues, she will in her old age lay a majority of drone eggs, to the serious weakening of the community. The skilled apiarian, therefore, takes care that every hive shall have a queen of an age when her fertility is greatest.

The process of egg-laying begins from two to four days after the flight for mating, depending somewhat on the preparation of cells for that purpose. The queen, on finding comb adapted to her needs, thrusts her head into a cell, apparently to ascertain if it is empty, and of the right depth and size for one of the two different kinds of eggs—those for workers, and those to become drones. Satisfied on these points, she withdraws her head, and, curving herself downwards, inserts her abdomen, and giving the lower part of her body a half-turn towards the thorax, she expels an egg from her oviduct, and then retires in search of other cells in which to make similar deposits. She rarely, and only by mistake, lays more than one egg in a cell. If she falls into the error, the worker-bees immediately remove all but one.

The examination of each cell by the queen to ascertain its fitness for the two kinds of eggs is an essential point; for, in the first place, the nature of drone-eggs is radically different from that of those which will produce workers; and the size of the cells in which the former are hatched is considerably greater than that in which the latter will be developed, nineteen ends of the larger covering a square inch of surface, while twenty-seven of the smaller will occupy the same space.

It seems an indisputable fact that the queen has the power of laying which of the two kinds of eggs she pleases. The essential difference between the two seems to be, that those which will become drones are not fertilised by spermatozoa just previous to leaving the oviduct, while the worker-eggs are thus specially vivified, and the operation appears to be under volitional control.

A further remarkable circumstance is that the rate of egg-laying is also a matter of determination, and not of necessity, on the part of the queen; for when a transfer has been made from a weak to a strong hive, the number of eggs deposited has been known to vary, within two days, from none to two thousand in twenty-four hours. In the one case the mother-bee knew her colony was not strong enough to keep up the requisite warmth for hatching and developing her progeny; in the other, she proceeded vigorously with her functions, the further progress of the young being secured by the abundance of the population sufficing to keep up the proper temperature, and to render all needed attention to the larvæ in their further development.

The ordinary rate of laying, under favourable conditions, varies from 600 to 800 eggs a day; but, under pressure of specially suitable conditions, from i,000 to 1,200 are not unfrequently deposited. Langstroth and Von Berlepsch have seen six laid in a minute; and the latter observer, on supplying a queen with some new empty comb, found after twenty-four hours more than 3,000 eggs had been laid. If this queen on the average got rid of five eggs per minute, the total number just mentioned would have been deposited in ten hours, so that she would have had fourteen hours for rest. The queen kept up her rate for twenty days, in which time she had filled 57,000 cells, and, what is very remarkable, her fecundity is said to have continued for five years, during which period she must have laid nearly a million and a-half of eggs. Dzierzon says, "Most queens, in spacious hives, and in a favourable season, lay 60,000 in a month, and a specially fertile queen, in the four years which she on an average lives, lays over a million eggs." These numbers will give some idea of the immense expenditure of life that is continually going on.

To keep up these very great productive energies, it is evident that large quantities of food must be consumed by the mother-bee, and, as we should expect, the amount taken varies in the ratio of the vigour of egg-laying.

It sometimes happens that, in the very height of her duties, sufficient cells are not forthcoming as places of deposit for eggs; and, in that case, the queen leaves some on the combs, or at the bottom of the hive. Strange to say, the worker-bees greedily devour such waifs and strays. In this respect we observe a great difference between ants and bees. Among the latter we do not find that passionate love and care for the eggs and larvæ which so strongly mark the former. Other circumstances of a similar kind, to be noted later on, show, on the part of bees, an intense regard for stores rather than progeny, notwithstanding their affection and devotion to the mother-bee, whose functions they thus acknowledge as all-important to the race.

The egg-laying of the queen goes on more or less for nine or ten months of the year, under favouring conditions; but the season of greatest activity is during April, May, and June. Various circumstances after that time cause a diminution of the number of eggs, till in November, December, and January, as a rule, the queen ceases her motherly functions.