272 MENTAL FACULTIES SEC. 



much larger size emerge, likewise resembling the queen, the 

 so-called " small females " or large workers, i.e. females whose 

 reproductive organs are developed, but who generally produce 

 only drone-eggs, though under certain circumstances they can 

 lay eggs which hatch into females or workers. These large 

 workers and the small workers and the old female, all three 

 kinds, now lay drone- eggs in large numbers, from which males 

 are hatched. Not till the end of summer does the mother 

 again lay queen -eggs. There exist now therefore in the 

 family (1) the old queen, who is frequently incapable of 

 flight and destitute of hairs ; (2) numerous young queens ; (3) 

 the ordinary or small workers ; (4) the large workers or small 

 females ; (5) the drones or males. All the workers throughout 

 the summer fly forth to collect about a quarter of an hour 

 before sunrise, awakened by a peculiar humming, the voice of 

 the trumpeter. The males also go to the fields, but only 

 from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, and only 

 for themselves. They do no work in the nest although 

 Hoffer saw them occasionally assist, but only when the roof 

 was taken away from a nest. On fine sunny days in July, 

 August, September, and the first half of October, the young 

 queens fly from the nest, settle on flower stems, broad leaves, 

 fences or walls in the sun, and are there sought by the drones 

 of their own or other nests, wooed, and then fertilised during 

 flight. When the young queens are all thus in a condition 

 which enables them to found new colonies in the following 

 year, the whole family gradually disperses. The accepted 

 males soon die, the rest fly about a great deal, return no more 

 to their home even at night, but usually remain out on 

 flowers, and gradually perish (a melancholy example of un- 

 successful existence). 



If one takes off the mossy covering from a nest at its most 

 flourishing period he usually comes upon a wall of wax, and 

 when he removes this he sees, not the regular honeycomb of 



