xviii. THE HONEY BEE. 259 



remodelled. And it steps forth a perfect bee, somewhat 

 pale and weak perhaps, but ready in twenty-four hours to 

 begin her work as a nurse. Wonderful, however, as are 

 these changes, different in almost every respect as is the 

 bee from the grub, we must remember that the trans- 

 formation involves no breach of vital continuity. The 

 series of events is part of a continuous development ; and 

 the insect grub no more dies that it may live again as a 

 butterfly or a bee, than a grain of corn perishes when it 

 is placed in the ground in preparation for the autumn 

 harvest. 



It is during metamorphosis that the striking external 

 differences between the worker and the queen-mother 

 begin to disclose themselves. Some of us might be 

 tempted to suppose that the queen-mother is in every 

 respect as superior as the humble worker-bee, as the 

 worker is herself superior to the idle, ill-conditioned, good- 

 for-nothing, reprobate drone. This is, however, a mistake. 

 The brain of both queen-mother and drone is markedly 

 inferior in relative size to that of the worker. In powers 

 of flight, as judged by the relative areas of the wings, the 

 queen-mother is slightly inferior to the worker. For 

 though the wing-area of the worker is somewhat less (by 

 one-sixth) than that of her fertile sister, her body is 

 relatively smaller by a somewhat larger fraction. But in 

 this matter of flight it is the lazy drone that carries off 

 the palm, having a wing-area of nearly twice (once and 

 four-fifths) that of the worker. The tongue of the worker 

 is more highly developed than that of queen-mother or 

 drone. As we shall see directly, the sense-endowment of 

 the queen-mother is in many respects inferior to that of 

 the infertile female, while here again it is the drone that 

 is the most highly developed. 



In the matter of sense-organs we are met by serious 



s 2 



