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ANIMAL BIOLOGY 



Compound 

 eyev 



An average hive comprises some 65,000 Bees of which one is 

 a queen, several hundred are drones, and the rest workers. 

 The queen is the only fertile female and accordingly she is the 

 mother of nearly all the other members of the hive. Throughout 

 her life of a few years she is tended and fed by her numerous off- 

 spring. The drones, or males, contribute nothing to the work of 

 the hive but, after the old queen departs at the swarming, one of 

 them during the nuptial flight mates with a virgin queen which 

 then is the queen of the hive. Thus queen and drones represent 



an adaptation of the colony to 

 communal life — a physiological 

 division of labor in the hive which 

 involves a specialization of a 

 class solely for reproduction, while 

 the daily work and strife of the 

 colony devolves upon the workers. 

 The latter are sexually undevel- 

 oped females which do not lay 

 eggs but spend their time carry- 

 ing water, collecting nectar and 

 pollen, secreting wax, building 

 the comb, preparing food, tending 

 the young, and cleaning, airing, 

 and defending the hive. 



The worker is a 'bundle of 

 adaptations ' for its varied duties. 

 The primitive insect appendages 

 have become specialized in the 

 worker Bee, so that collectively 

 they constitute a battery of tools 

 adapted with great nicety to the 

 uses for which they are employed. This applies to all of the 

 appendages of the insect's body, but we shall neglect those of the 

 head and consider only the specializations of the three pairs of 

 legs. These, as in all Insects, arise from the thorax ; the anterior 

 pair from the first segment of the thorax (prothorax) ; the second, 

 or middle, pair from the second thoracic segment (mesothorax) ; 

 and the posterior pair from the third, or last, thoracic segment 

 (metathorax). A typical insect leg consists of several parts: the 

 coxa, which forms the junction with the body, followed in order 



Clypeus 

 Labrum 

 Mandible 



Maxilla 



Antenna 



Epipharynx 



Labial palp 



Glossa 



Labellum 



Fig. 215. — Head of a worker 

 Honey Bee. 



