436 THE ANIMALS AND MAN 



pupa issues not a worker but a new queen. The eggs 

 which produce drones or males differ from those which 

 produce queens and workers in being unfertilized, the queen 

 having the power to lay either fertilized or unfertilized eggs. 

 When a new queen appears, or when several appear at once, 

 there is great excitement in the community. If there are 

 several they are believed to fight among themselves until 

 only one survives. It is said that a queen never uses its 

 sting except against another queen. The old queen now 

 leaves the hive accompanied by many of the workers. She 

 and her followers fly away together, finally alighting on 

 some tree branch and hanging there in a dense mass. This 

 is the familiar act of "swarming." Scouts leave the swarm 

 to find a new home, to which they finally conduct the others. 

 Thus is founded a new colony. 



There are many more interesting things to be learned 

 of the life in a honeybee community; how it protects itself 

 from the dangers of starvation, when food is scarce or winter 

 comes on, by killing the useless drones and the immature 

 bees in egg and larval stages; how the instinct of home- 

 finding has been so highly developed that the worker may 

 go miles away for honey and nectar, flying with unerring 

 accuracy back to the hive; of the extraordinarily nice 

 structural modifications which adapt the bee so perfectly 

 for its complex and varied affairs; and of the tireless per- 

 sistence of the workers until they fall exhausted and dying 

 in the performance of their duties. The community, it 

 is important to note, is a persistent or continuous one. 

 The workers do not live long, the spring broods usually 

 not over two or three months, and the fall broods not more 

 than six or eight months; but new bees are hatching while 

 the old ones are dying, and the community as a whole always 

 persists. The queen may live several years, perhaps as 

 many as five. She lays about one million eggs a year. 



The honeybees offer a splendid example of mutual aid 



