526 Saw-flies, Gall-flies, Ichneumons, 



workers and larvae and pupae are also sometimes killed just before winter, 

 if the food-stores which are to carry the community through the long flower- 

 less season are for any reason not likely to prove sufficient for so large a num- 

 ber of individuals. In all these matters, that is, the making of queens and 

 when, the swarming out and when, and the reduction of the community to 

 safe winter numbers, the decision is made by the workers and not the queen. 

 The queen is no ruler; she is the mother, or, better, simply the egg-layer 

 for the whole community. 



The drones, we have seen, have one particular function to perform in 

 the community life, the queen another single particular function; but the 

 workers have numerous varied performances to achieve if the community 

 shall live successfully. It might be expected, from analogous conditions 

 elsewhere existing in animal life, that with the division of labor in the honey- 

 bee economy there should be a corresponding differentiation of structure 

 or polymorphism inside the species. This polymorphism or existence of 

 structurally different kinds of individuals occurs in bees only to the extent 

 already pointed out; there are three kinds of individuals: the queens, with 

 a special function, the drones, with a single special function, and the workers, 

 each capable of performing, and, for the time of the performance, doing it 

 exclusively, any of the varied industries necessary to the community life. 

 All worker honey-bees are alike, each possessing all the special structural 

 specializations, as pollen -basket, wax-plates, wax-shears, trowel-like jaws, 

 etc., which have been developed for the special performance of particular 

 industries. In some other communal insects a differentiation or polymor- 

 phism among the workers exists; many ant species have two or even three 

 kinds of workers, the termites have soldiers as well as workers, etc. I pur- 

 pose now to describe briefly each of the principal special industries achieved 

 by the workers, at the same time describing the structural specialization 

 connected with each of these industries. 



The wax produced by the workers is a secretion which issues as a liquid, 

 soon hardening, from pairs of thin five-sided plates, one pair on the ventral 

 surface of each of the last four abdominal segments (Fig. 731). It is secreted 

 by modified cells of the skin lying under the chitinized cuticle of the plates, 

 and oozes out through fine pores in the plates. To produce it certain work- 

 ers eat a large amount of honey, then massing together form a curtain or 

 festoon hanging down from the ceiling of the hive or frame, and increase 

 the temperature of their bodies by some strong internal exertion; after the 

 lapse of several hours, sometimes indeed two or three days, fine, thin, glisten- 

 ing, nearly transparent scales of wax appear on the "wax-plates." These 

 wax-scales continue to increase in area and soon project beyond the margin 

 of the segment, when they either fall off or are plucked off by other workers 

 or by the wax-producing worker itself. They are then taken in the mouth, 



