322 ENTOMOLOGY 
males with an atrophied reproductive system. They constitute 
the vast majority in any colony and are the only kind that is 
commonly seen out of doors. Upon the industrious workers 
falls the burden of the labor; they build the comb, nurse the 
young, gather food, clean and repair the nest, guard it from 
intruders, control larval development, expel the drones— 
briefly, the workers alone are responsible for the general man- 
agement of the community. Though hibernating workers live 
eight or nine months, the other workers live but from five to 
twelve weeks. 
The term queen is, of course, a misnomer, for the govern- 
ment of the hive is anything but monarchial. The chief duties 
of the queen, or mother, are simply to lay 
Fic. 278. 
eggs and to lead away a swarm. She is 
able to deposit as many as 4,000 ege’s in 
twenty-four hours. After a single mat- 
ing, the spermatozoa retain their vitality 
in the spermatheca of the queen for three 
or four years—the lifetime of a queen. 
The males, or drones, apart from their 
occasional sexual usefulness, are of little 
or no service, and their very name has . 
become an expression for laziness. 
The Comb.—\Wax, of which the comb 
is built, is made from honey or sugar, 
rs 
many pounds (twenty, according to 
A, bases of comb cells; 
B, section of comb. Some- 
what enlarged—Afterone pound of wax. The workers, gorged 
CHESHIRE. 
Huber) of honey being required to make 
with nectar, cling to one another in a 
dense heated mass until the white films of wax appear under- 
neath the abdomen (Fig. 102); these are transferred to the 
mouth by means of the wax-pincers (lig. 263, C) of the hind 
legs and are masticated with a fluid, secreted by cephalic 
glands, which alters the chemical composition of the wax and 
makes it plastic. 
The workers now contribute their wax to form a vertical, 
