INSTINCT OF BEES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1052, 4 June 1912, Page 4

INSTINCT OF BEES.

THREE CLASSES OE INDIVIDUALS IN EACH COLONY.

e la the honey bee wo find so many and such remarkable instincts that it cmcins lo me iHipo.-.siDie that they could .ico bech acquired by Cue process of o. or.. Lion.

inree kinds ot individuals exist in a coiouy ot bees—the queen, whose sole work is to lay eggs, the drones, or males, whose only 1 unction is to fertilise the cpieen, and tire workers, which are temaics undeveloped sexually. Only one queen is permitted to live in the colony at the same tune, there being a mortal antipathy between the queens. Tho queen is continually guarded by a number of workers, and her wants are carefully supplied, il two queens are in tho same colony they enter combat, being urged by the workers, till one stings the ouier to death. When a young queen is ready to leave the coil m which she lias been reared, she is not permitted to do so, but she is guarded by tho workers until the old queen has abandoned the hive with a swarm, and then she is permitted to leave the cell. When the queen has lully matured in her cell the workers cut away the wax from the cud of tho cell till it ia an exceedingly Llun film. 11 the colony is deprived of ite queen, the workers, after searching in vain for her, sot to work to rear a new queen. For this purpose they' select a larva that would develop into a worker, remove some oi the neighbouring cells, and construct for it a large vertical cell. By feeding this larva, on royal jelly it becomes a queen. If two queens during combat acquire a position in which they might destroy each other, thus leaving the hive without a queen, they refrain from giving each otner the mortal stroke. When the swarming season is over the old queen is permitted by the workers to sting to death all the queens that are in tho cells.

if the queen loses both her antennae she is unable properly to deposit her eggs, and the workers permit her to perish. At tho close of Iho swarming season all tho drones are killed by tho workers. They arc no longer needed, for the old queen has already been fertilised, and new drones can be roared in the following spring.

Jf they lose the queen when swarming they return to thohive they have left—seeming to realise that their efforts would be fruitless without a queen. If the hive has no queen the drones are permitted to live turough the winter. When tho drones are destroyed the larvae and pupa which would produce drones are also destroyed. If pressed for food, a colony will attack a weaker colony or a hive without a queen; and, if the attack is successful, tho vanquished colony joins the conquerors, thus strengthening the hive.—Alfred Fairhurst, in Organic Evolution Considered.