284 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



prison. Rather, she eats her way through, for the 

 material removed is swallowed as it is detached, thus the 

 young bee, as Mr. Tickner Edwardes remarks, is caused 

 to effect her own release by the promptings of her appetite. 

 Hunger-strikes in the bee community are unknown. 

 Speedily the youngster steps out, distinguishable from her 

 elder sisters only by her weak, grey-hued, flaccid appear- 

 ance. Her first act on gaining freedom is to groom her- 

 self down, after which she proceeds to explore the gloomy, 

 busy, crowded thoroughfares of the hive. A day or two 

 is thus passed in gathering strength. On the second 

 appetite returns, and she proceeds to help herself from 

 the vats of honey and pollen bins scattered here and there 

 among the cradles of her sisters yet prisoners. But 

 speedily she is caught and thrust, so to speak, on to the 

 treadmill of work which is to know no cessation during 

 her short span of life — some six or seven weeks. Her first 

 duties are those of nursemaid. Without instruction, or 

 previous experience, she begins to feed her younger sisters 

 and brothers yet in the larval stage. But besides, during 

 her first fortnight, before she is allowed to leave the hive 

 she and her sisters of the same age have to fulfil a variety 

 of tasks. All the indoor work of the house falls on these 

 Cinderellas. Not only do they, and they alone, feed the 

 young, but they have to produce the wax and build the 

 combs and attend to the sanitary arrangements : " they 

 are the brewers of the honey and the keepers of the stores ; 

 they feed the queen bee on her ceaseless rounds and give 

 the drones, their brothers, their daily rations of bee- 

 milk " — what else these lazy creatures need they take 

 for themselves from the honey-vats. But this is not all. 

 They have to meet their older sisters returning from the 

 fields and gardens laden with nectar. This is regurgitated 



