vii] THE SOCIAL-BEES 107 



possessing a much longer abdomen ; she seems in 

 fact to trail her abdomen along with some difficulty : 

 this feature is due to the presence of the well- 

 developed ovaries from which her amazing multitude 

 of eggs are produced year after year. The drone 

 is altogether a larger insect than either queen or 

 worker, and is of much stouter build ; his eyes are 

 very large and meet one another on the top of the 

 head ; the hair on the thorax is very dense and short, 

 and that on the abdomen much shorter than in the 

 workers ; the hind leg is of a different shape, and has 

 no wax-nipper ; the antennae are longer ; and the 

 note of his " hum " is both louder and deeper. His 

 sole function is to fertilise a queen. 



This chapter may be closed by directing attention 

 to the remarkable fact that in the honev-bee there 



/ 



are handed on to generation after generation of 

 workers features both of structure and of habit 

 which are not present in either of their parents. It 

 is conceivable that in the past the fertile " queens " 

 may have possessed pollen brushes, corbicula and all 

 the other modifications now characteristic of the 

 worker, but they assuredly did not possess all those 

 instincts of the present day worker that are associated 

 with the existence and welfare of each commonwealth 

 of bees. These instincts can only have been evolved 

 within the limits of the workers themselves ; and yet 

 workers are sterile and incapable of handing on 



