H y MEN OP TERA . 3 1 9 



front pair of legs transmits the booty to the second pair, which stores 

 them in the baskets of the third. When it has gathered as much as 

 it can carry, the bee returns to the hive, its legs laden with pollen. 



This complete set of tools which we have just described is only 

 to be met with among the working bees. The males, or drones 



Fig. 312.— Male, or Drone {Apis mellifica). Fig. 313.— Female, or Queen {Apis mellifca). 



(Fig. 312), larger and more hairy than the working bees, emitting a 

 sonorous and buzzing sound, have no palettes on their legs, the hairs 

 on their tarsi are not appropriated to the work of gathering, their 

 mandibles are shorter, and they have no aculeus, or sting, which is 

 the working bee's weapon. 



The female, or-xpiefin (Fig. 313), is smaller than the male, and 

 has a longer body than the working bees, and the wings, shorter in 

 proportion, cover only the half of its body, whereas with the other 

 bees they cover it entirely. The only part she has to play is that of 

 laying eggs, and so she has no palettes and brushes. The sovereign 

 is, as suits her supreme rank, exempted from all work. She is always 

 escorted by a certain number of working bees, who brush her, lick 

 her, present honey to her with their trunks, save her every kind of 

 fatigue, and compose a train worthy of her feminine majesty. One 

 very remarkable fact is that only one queen lives in each hive. 

 Perfect sovereign of this tiny state, she rules over a people of some 

 thousands of workers. It is not rare to find 20,000 working bees in 

 a hive, and all submissively obey their sovereign. The number 

 of males is scarcely one-tenth part of that of the working bees ; 

 and they only live about three months. The workers represent the 

 active life of the community. 



" The exterior of a hive," says M. Victor Rendre, " gives the best 

 idea of this people, essentially laborious. From sunrise to sunset, 

 all is movement, diligence, bustle ; it is an incessant series of goings 

 and comings, of various operations which begin, continue, and end, 

 to be recommenced. Hundreds of bees arrive from the fields, laden 



