264 



ENTOMOLOGY 



common Termes flavipes occasionally damages woodwork, books, plants, 

 etc., in an extensive way, particularly in the Southern states. 



Termitophilism. Associating with termites are found various 

 other arthropods, mostly insects. Their relations to the termites are, 

 so far as is known, similar to those described beyond between myrme- 

 cophilous species and ants. These tcrmito pinions forms, however, have 

 received as yet but little attention. 



HONEY BEE 



For more than three thousand years the honey bee has been almost 

 unique among insects as an object of human care and study. It was 

 highly prized by the old Greeks and Romans (as appears from the writ- 

 ings of Aristotle, 330 B. C., and Cato, about 200 B. C.) and actually 

 worshiped as a symbol of royalty by the ancient Egyptians, through 

 whose papyri and scarabs the honey bee may be traced back to the time 

 of Rameses I., or 1400 B. C. 



Though its habits have been somewhat modified by domestication, 

 the honey bee, unlike most domesticated animals, is still so little de- 



A B C 



FIG. 281. The honey bee, Apis mcllifcra. A, queen; B, drone; C, worker. Natural size. 



pendent upon man that it readily returns to a wild life. Under many 

 distinct races, which are due largely to human intervention, Apis mel- 

 lifera is widely distributed over the earth. 



Castes. The species comprises three kinds of individuals: queen, 

 drone, and worker (Fig. 281). The workers are females with an atrophied 

 reproductive system. They constitute the vast majority in any colony 

 and are the only kind that is commonly seen out of doors. Upon the 

 industrious workers falls the burden of the labor; they build the comb, 

 nurse the young, gather food, clean and repair the nest, guard it from 

 intruders, control larval development, expel the drones briefly, the 

 workers alone are responsible for the general management of the com- 



