vii] THE SOCIAL-BEES 91 



plan or system. The cells which have once been used 

 are not employed a second time for nursery purposes, 

 but new cells are placed upon them in haphazard 

 fashion, so that an old nest presents a very irregular, 

 knobby appearance, which is enhanced by the varying 

 sizes of the cells themselves. In the smallest cells 

 "workers" are reared, in the largest fertile females, 

 and in those of intermediate size, drones. It appears 

 also that a nourishing lining of pollen and honey is 

 provided only to the earliest cells : the larvae of those 

 of later date are fed entirely by the workers from day 

 to day. To safeguard the rising generation, and also 

 the full-grown inhabitants of the nest, against famine 

 during bad weather stores of pollen and of honey are 

 laid up within the nest. The old cells and the empty 

 cocoons from which bees have emerged are employed 

 as tubs for this purpose, and special waxen honey 

 pots are constructed and left permanently open, pro 

 bono publico a fact of which small boys at times 

 avail themselves. The small females which are pro- 

 duced during the middle of the season frequently, 

 perhaps always, become fertile, and together with 

 some of the "workers' take some part in egg-pro- 

 duction, and thus add to the numerical strength of 

 the colony. We have very little knowledge of the 

 causes which determine for or against the fertility of 

 these small females, neither is the sex of their off- 

 spring known with certainty ; but there is no doubt 



