“The queen bee is larger and longer than any of the others,” answered Mr. Bunker, “and even you, not knowing anything about bees, could easily pick her out of hundreds of others. The drones are a little larger than the workers, and the queer thing about the drones is that they never sting. They have no stings and cannot harm you. The queen can sting, but she never does, or hardly ever; for once a bee stings, it leaves the stinger in a person or an animal, and that means the bee dies. And it wouldn’t do to have the queen bee die.” “What would happen if she should die?” asked Russ. “That is taken care of by the worker bees,” said Mr. Bunker. “In the cells, or little holes in the wax honeycomb, are many eggs that after a while will hatch out into other bees, mostly workers or drones. The queen bee lays the eggs that hatch into other bees. But if it should happen that the queen should die, the worker bees at once begin to feed to some of the half-hatched little bees a peculiar kind of food gathered from the flowers. It is a sort of mixture of honey and juices from the bees’ bodies. This is called royal food, royal honey or queen bread. And when the half-hatched little bees eat this strange food they are changed from ordinary bees into queen bees. “But as there can be but one queen in a hive, if more hatch out all but one are killed, and so the life in the hive goes on. The new queen begins laying eggs, and more drones, workers and perhaps more queens are hatched. The workers fly off to the fields to gather honey from the flowers, and they also gather something else.” “I know!” cried Russ. “Our teacher in school told us! They gather yellow stuff. It is called——” “Pollen!” exclaimed Rose. “I know that.” “Yes,” her father answered, “the bees gather pollen, or the yellow dust from the flowers, and by mixing this yellow dust with some juices from their bodies they make beeswax, from which the cells are built to hold the sweet honey juice.” “But I thought you said only one queen bee could live in a swarm,” said Violet. “And if the queen bee lays eggs and other queens hatch out I should think——” Mr. Bunker pointed to Farmer Joel, who was still chasing after his runaway swarm. “That’s what happens when two queens get in a hive,” said Daddy Bunker. “One queen leaves, taking with her perhaps half the worker bees and some drones. They fly away to start a new hive, swarm, or colony, as it is sometimes called. “But not always do bees swarm because there are two queens in a hive. Often the queen may take a notion that she would like a new home, so out she flies and with her go her faithful subjects, just as in real life the subjects of a human king or queen follow them.” “Where do you think these bees will go?” asked Rose.