Stinging Fouivwinged Insects 



707 



Photo by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., Regent's Park. 

 HIVE-BEE. 



(QUEEN, WORKER, AND DRONE.) 



There are only about ten or twelve kinds of 

 true hive-bees known. 



once prepared by the other bees for a fresh occupant. The 

 newly born bee is at first moist, flabby, and pale-coloured ; 

 but in a few hours her skin dries and hardens, when she at 

 once commences her life-long labours, at first tending the 

 young bees and doing other necessary duties in the hive, and 

 then, a fortnight later, going forth with her companions to 

 collect honey and pollen in the meadows and gardens. 



There is never room for more than one queen-bee in 

 a hive; and the queens, which may be recognised by their 

 longer bodies and shorter wings, have such a mortal hatred 

 of each other that, whenever two of them meet, they will 

 fight, if permitted, until one is killed. But in summer, when 

 young bees are hatching daily in large numbers, and the hive 

 is getting over-populated, the workers do not permit the 

 queens to fight; and finally one of them (usually the old 

 queen in the first instance) works herself up into a great 

 flurry, and rushes out of the hive, attended by several hundred 

 followers, to seek for fresh fields and pastures new. This is 

 called " swarming " ; and a strong hive will often throw off as 

 many as four or five swarms in the course of the summer. 

 It is then the object of the bee-keeper to get the queen to 

 enter a new hive, for otherwise the swarm may fly to a 

 distance and be lost; but wherever the queen-bee takes up 

 her abode, her companions will assemble round her, and at 

 once commence the work of building combs and storing up 

 honey. 



The drone, or male bee, is rather larger than the worker, 

 and has a 

 more ob- 

 tuse body. 



He may be at once distinguished by his 

 long thirteen-jointed antennae, or feelers, 

 for the antennae are shorter and only 

 twelve-jointed in the queen and worker. 

 There are several hundred drones in a hive; 

 but the queen only pairs once in her life, 

 on the wing, and the ceremony is im- 

 mediately followed by the death of the 

 drone. The drones have no sting, for the 

 sting of the female and worker is really a 

 modified ovipositor, or egg-laying apparatus, 

 analogous to the organ which is so con- 

 spicuous in many ichneumons and other 

 insects belonging to the same order as the 

 bees. In the autumn the unfortunate drones 

 are all massacred or else driven forth from 

 the hive by the workers, when they speedily 

 perish. The workers are by far the most 

 numerous of the inhabitants of a bee-hive ; 

 there may be many thousands of them, and 

 their number appears to be only limited by Bumble . bees 



the dimensions of the hive itself. 



Photo by B. H. Bentley} 



BUMBLE-BEE ON EVERLASTING-PEA. 



[Sheffield. 



ir nest s m the ground, and live in sma iier com- 



munities than the hive-bee. 



