Among the innumerable of more or less erroneous information on hive-life, dished up by the popular newspapers in course of the year’s round, there is occasionally one which is sure to grip the curious reader’s attention.  No one expects nowadays to read of the honey-bee without being set agape at the marvellous; but, really, when he is gravely told that the nurse-bees in a hive actually give the breast to their young, suckling them with a liquid which is nothing more or less than milk, the ordinarily faithful newspaper student is entitled to be for once incredulous.  
The thing, however, in spite of its improbability, comes nearer to the plain truth than many another item of bee-life more often encountered and unquestionably accepted.  There are veritable nurse-bees in a hive, and these do produce something not unlike milk.  In about three days after the egg has been deposited in the comb-cell by the queen, or mother-bee, a tiny white grub emerges.  The feeding of this grub is immediately commenced by the bees in charge of the nursery quarters of the hive, and there is administered to it a white substance closely resembling thick cream.
 
tell us that this bee-milk, as it is called, is highly nitrogenous in character, and that it has a decidedly acid reaction.  It is obviously produced from the mouths of the nurse-bees, and appears to be digested matter thrown up from some part of the bee’s internal system, and combined with the from one or more of the four separate sets of which open into different parts of the worker-bee’s mouth.  The power to this bee-milk seems to be normally limited to those workers who are under fourteen or fifteen days old.  After that time the bee runs dry, her nursing work is , and she goes out to for nectar and , never, as far as is known, resuming the task of feeding the young grubs.  But if the is not exercised, it may be held in for months together.  This takes place at the close of each year, when we know that the last bees born to the hive in autumn are those who supply the milk for the first of larva raised in the ensuing spring.
 
It is difficult to keep out the wonder-weaving mood when writing of any phase of hive-life, and especially so when we have this bee-milk under consideration.  For all recent studies of the matter tend to prove several facts about it not merely wonderful, but on the mysterious.
 
In the first place, its composition seems to be variable at the will of the bees.  The white liquid is supplied to the grubs of worker, queen, and drone, and not only is its nature different with each, but it is even possible that this may be farther modified in the various stages of their development.  It is well that the physical and temperamental differences between queen and worker-bee, widely marked as they appear, are due to treatment and feeding during the larval stage.  That the eggs producing the two are identical is proved by the fact that these can be transposed without confounding the original purpose of the hive.  The queen-egg placed in the worker-cell develops into a common worker, while the worker-egg, when to a queen’s cradle, infallibly produces a accoutred queen bee.  The experiment can also be made even with the young grubs, provided that these are no more than three days old, and the same result ensues.
 
A close study of the food administered to bees when in the larval stage of their career is interesting, because it gives us the key to many otherwise matters connected with hive-life.  We do not know, and probably never shall know, how variation in diet causes certain organs to appear and certain other bodily parts to absent themselves.  If the difference between queen and worker-bee were simply one of development, the worker being only an undersized, semi-atrophied of a queen, there would be little mystery about it.  But each has several highly specialised organs, of which the other has no trace, just as each has certain functions reduced to mere rudimentary uselessness, which, in the other, possess enormous development and a corresponding importance.
 
Clearly the food given in each case has properties, bringing about certain definite invariable results.  We are able, therefore, to say that most of the classic of bee-life are built up on this one issue, this one logical adjustment of cause and effect.  The hive creates thousands of sexless workers and only one fertile mother-bee.  It limits the number of its offspring according to the visible food supplies or the needs of the .  It brings into existence, when necessity calls for them, ............