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A Social Insect — The Honeybee 



Insects may be conveniently divided into those which are solitary 

 and those which live in organized groups, the social insects. Solitary 

 insects, like the grasshoppers, usually associate with each other only 

 during the mating period and live individualistic lives the remainder 

 of the time. They may be seen in large groups, but the association is 

 casual ; they are merely feeding or drinking in the same place. On the 

 other hand, the social insects have a highly developed organization with 

 division of labor among the members of the group and a sharing of 

 the benefits of this labor. In some of these, such as the bumblebees, 

 the groups are small and the organization lasts only a few months; 

 in others, such as the honeybee, they may contain as many as 60,000 

 individuals and may maintain themselves almost indefinitely. The 

 honeybee is the most useful of the social insects, and a survey of its 

 habits will give us an insight into the habits of social insects in general. 



Bee Castes 



A typical hive of bees contains three castes : a queen, several hundred 

 drones, and many thousand workers. The queen is the largest of the 

 three ; she is the only mature female in the colony and she lays eggs 

 for the entire hive. She will lay from one to two thousand a day 

 during the warm months. The drones are next in size ; they are the 

 mature males and do no work of any kind either in the hive or in the 

 field. When the weather is suitable they make short flights from the 

 hive but are unable to collect either nectar or pollen. They even have 

 to be fed by the workers. They cannot protect the hive for they lack 

 a sting. Their only function in the economy of the hive is to mate 

 with the young virgin queens. The workers are the smallest in size ; 

 they are imperfect females who perform the many duties of establishing 

 and maintaining the hive. 



Duties of House Bees 



Workers are divided into two groups : house bees and field bees. For 

 the first three weeks after they are hatched, the workers remain in the 



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