48 



The Living Things of the Earth ' unit i 



The life of the bee. Bumblebees are 

 the giants among bees. They live in 

 fairU' small colonics in the ground. 

 Honeybees live in nuicii larger com- 

 munities than do bumblebees; each col- 

 ony ma\' consist of more than 35,000 

 individuals. They build their nests in 

 caves or hollow trees or in beehives 

 provided by man. These are the bees 

 that make the honey of commerce. 



Fig. 65 (above) From left to right these are 

 worker, drone {male), and queen (jemale) 

 bees. How can you tell one fro?n the other? 

 (root) 



Fig. 66 (left) A swarm of bees. How does the 

 beekeeper take advaiitage of swarming to start 

 a new hive? How many bees would you judge 

 to be in this swarm? (u. s. bureau of ento- 

 mology) 



There are males, females, and worker 

 bees. See Figure 65. As among ants, the 

 queen is the central figure in the com- 

 munity. She is fed and carefully guarded. 

 She lays eggs, thousands of them, while 

 the workers toil. They build the honey- 

 comb of wax which forms from a 

 liquid which oozes out of their bodies. 

 They cut the wax into plates with their 

 jaws and build the amazingly exact six- 

 sided chambers. When these rooms are 

 completed the queen deposits one tg^ 

 in each. Other workers bring in food. 

 Flying from flower to flower they gather 

 nectar, a sweet liquid which they store 

 temporarily in a special honey stomach. 

 When they return to the hive they give 

 it up again to feed to the young. Or 

 they change it into thick hone\' and 

 store it in the honc\'comb. When a 

 cell of the comb is filled with honc\- they 

 cap it with wax. Often they gather pol- 

 len from flowers. This they prepare 



