130 ANIMAL FORMS 



twenty to two hundred workers. Regular combs are not 

 constructed, the young at first feeding on pollen masses or 

 " bee-bread," and finally spinning cocoons. In the late 

 summer males and females appear, but as winter conies on 

 all perish except the queens, which seek a sheltered place, 

 and in the spring revive to establish new colonies. 



In a wild state the honey-bees dwell in cavities of trees 

 and other protected places, where they form colonies, 

 consisting of the queen, of per- 

 haps two hundred males or 

 drones if the nest be examined 

 in the spring and summer, and 

 of a hundred times as many 

 sterile females, the workers. 

 These form among the most 

 highly organized insect soci- 

 eties known. All work for the 



FIG. 80.-Bumblebee (Bombus). 



good of the colony. To each 



worker is assigned a definite task, which is never shirked. 

 It must collect the honey, supply the wax for making the 

 comb, take care of the brood, or in other ways minister to 

 the welfare of the community. On the queen devolves 

 the entire task of egg-laying. She may lay three thousand 

 eggs a day and be fully occupied during the three or four 

 years that she lives. The drones, or males, fertilize most 

 of the eggs, and are then driven out from the hive, after 

 a stay of a month or two. The eggs unfertilized by the 

 drones are placed in large cells, and the young fed on 

 pollen develop into males. The fertilized eggs may pro- 

 duce queens or workers at the discretion of the queen. If 

 the latter be desired, the eggs are placed in small cells with 

 a scant amount of food, which apparently causes the repro- 

 ductive system to remain undeveloped. The same eggs, if 

 placed in the large queen cells and supplied with highly 

 nutritious food, would have developed into queens. When 

 these latter appear they are vigorously attacked and killed 



