82 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



whole life of the hive, is more marvellous than any 

 media?val fancy. 



We have not outlined nearly all the labours of the 

 workers. There is the exhausting though passive labour 

 of forming the wax which oozes out on the under-surfacc 

 of the body, and then there is the marvellous comb- 

 building, at which the bees are very neat and clever 

 workers, though they do not deserve the reputation for 

 mathematical insight once granted them. " Their combs, " 

 Mr. Cheshire says, " are rows of rooms unsurpassably 

 suitable for feeding and nurturing the larvae, for giving 

 safety and seclusion during the mystic sleep of pupa- 

 hood, for ensconcing the weary worker seeking rest, and 

 for safely warehousing the provisions ever needed by the 

 numerous family and by all during the winter's siege. 

 Corridors run between, giving sufficient space for the 

 more extensive quarters of the prospective mother, and 

 affording every facility to the busy throng walking on 

 the ladders the edges of their apartments supply ; while 

 the exactions of modern hygiene are fully met by air, in 

 its native purity, sweeping past the doorway of every 

 inhabitant of the insect city." 



We shall not seek to penetrate into the more hidden 

 mysteries of the life of bees ; for instance, " how the 

 drones have a mother but no father," or how high feed- 

 ing makes the difference between a queen and a worker. 

 An outline of the yearly life is more appropriate. From 

 the winter's rest the surviving bees reawaken when the 

 earty flowering trees begin to blossom ; the workers en- 

 gage in a " spring cleaning," and the queen restores the 

 reduced population by egg-laying. New supplies of food 

 are brought in, new bees are born, and in early summer 

 we see the busy life in all its energy. The pressure of 

 increased population makes itself felt, and migration or 

 " swarming ' becomes imperative. In due time and in 

 fair weather ' the old mother departs with the super- 

 abundance of the population." Meanwhile in the 

 parent-hive drones have been born, and several possible 

 queens await liberation. The first to be set free has to 

 hold her own against newcomers, or it may be to die 



