The Habits of the Honeybee 5 



families, the family to which the bee belongs being 

 known as the Apidae. 



A colony of bees consists of one female, capable of 

 laying eggs, called the queen; some thousands of 

 undeveloped females that normally never lay eggs, the 

 workers ; and, at certain seasons of the year, many 

 males, the drones, whose only duty is to mate with the 

 young queens. These different kinds of individuals 

 can readily be recognized by the difference in size of 

 \arious parts of the body, so that even the novice at 

 beekeeping can soon recognize each with ease. This 

 colony makes its home in nature in a hollow tree or 



EGG OF QUEEN UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 



cave; but it thrives perhaps even better in the hives 

 provided for it by man. There are many kinds of hives 

 — some good and others seemingly made merely to sell; 

 but they must all contain sheets of comb, concerning 

 the making of which more will be said later. In a 

 modern hive the sheets of comb are placed in wooden 

 frames whicli are luing in the hive-box in such a way 

 that they can be lemoved at the pleasure of the bee- 

 keeper. A slieet of comb is made up of small cells in 

 which honey is stored by the bees, and in which eggs 

 are laid, and young bees develop. To study the aetiv- 



