76 The Study of Animal Life part i 



with a queen in her nuptial flight, himself to die soon after, 

 saved at least from the expulsion and massacre which await 

 all the sex when the supplies of honey run short in autumn. 

 The queen and drones are important only so far as multiplica- 

 tion is concerned. The sustained life of the hive is wholly in 

 the hands of the workers, who in brains, in activity, and 

 general equipment are greatly superior to their " queen." 

 " The queen has lost her domestic arts, which the worker pos- 

 sesses in a perfection never attained by the ancestral types ; 

 while the worker has lost her maternal functions, although 

 she still possesses the needed organs in a rudimentary state." 

 What a busy life is theirs, gathering nectar and pollen 

 unwearj'ingly, while the sunshine lasts, neatly slipping into 

 the secrets of the flowers or stealing their treasures by 

 force, carrying their booty home in swift sweeping flight, 

 often over long distances unerringly, unloading the pollen 

 from their hind-legs and packing it into some cells of the 

 comb, emptying out the nectar from their crop or honey- 

 sac into store-cells, and then off again for more — such is 

 their socialised mania for getting. But, besides these 

 "foragers" — for the most part seniors — there are younger 

 stay-at-home " nurses," whose labours, if less energetic, are 

 not less essential. For it is their part to look after the 

 grubs in their cradles, to feed them at first with a " pap " of 

 digested nectar, and then to wean them to a diet of honey, 

 pollen, and water ; to attend the queen, guiding her move- 

 ments and feeding her while she lays many eggs, sometimes 

 2000 to 3000 eggs in a day. Mr. Cheshire, in his incom- 

 parably careful book on Bees atid Beekeeping, laughs at the 

 " many writers who have given the echo to a mediaeval 

 fancy by stating that the queen is ever surrounded by a 

 circle of dutiful subjects, reverently watching her move- 

 ments, and liable to instant banishment upon any neglect 

 of duty. These it was once the fashion to compare to the 

 twelve Apostles, and, to make the ridiculous suggestion 

 complete, their number was said to be invariably twelve ! '■ 

 But Mr. Cheshire's own account of the nurses' work, and of 

 the whole life of the hive, is more marvellous than any 

 mediaeval fancy. 



