184 OTHER DENIZENS OF THE WOODS 



fertile female known as the queen, and from ten thousand to thirty thousand 

 workers. These latter, the smallest denizens of the hive, bear on their 

 hind - legs the distinctive small receptacles for collecting the pollen, and 

 ear -shaped prolongations for the purpose of removing the wax secreted 

 between the abdominal rings, the wax being formed in four pairs of glands 

 known as wax-pockets. From the wax the working bees, the only labourers in 

 the hive, construct the honeycombs, composed of many upright hexagonal cells, 

 placed in two series, back to back, and fastened together with a mucilage, the crude 

 wax, a sticky substance which exudes from the buds of several trees, particularly 

 poplars. Like the queen, the working bees are provided with stings, which 

 commonly remain in the wound they cause, and by so doing occasion the death of 

 the insect. Of the wax-cells, some are filled with the honey sucked by the bees 

 from flowers and regurgitated. In others the queen lays her eggs at the rate of 

 about two a minute for several weeks. From these develop drones, queens, and 

 workers. When the young queens are ready to assume their duties, the old queen 

 leads off a party of the workers, and goes away to start another home, the 

 emigration being known as swarming. The young queens are then liberated from 

 their cells, and, should the} 1 not lead off fresh swarms, remain to fight for the 

 vacancy, and not until the survivor has killed all her rivals does she take her nuptial 

 flight. The stingless drones, which are larger and more compact than the working 

 bees, do not appear until spring: they fly out rarely and only in warm weather; 

 and though they feed on honey do not bring any to the hive. They are useless 

 except for reproductive purposes, and after once mating are killed or turned 

 out to die. Thus the hive, up to the development of the female larvae, consists only 

 of workers. The vast majority of eggs laid by the queen are female, her drone- 

 eggs being comparatively few. Queens that have never mated also lay eggs, the 

 eggs being invariably those of drones. The difference between the drones on 

 the one hand, and the queens and workers on the other, is thus dependent on the 

 eggs, but the difference between the queens and the workers is entirely due to 

 the way in which the female larvae are nursed. In the ordinary course the larva 

 becomes a worker, but it may be developed into a queen by means of better and 

 more plentiful food, and for the same reason workers which have been brought up 

 with special care may occasionally be capable of reproducing their kind. 



Besides silkworms and cochineal insects, bees are the only insects which, in a 

 certain degree, have become domesticated animals, and their culture for honey and 

 wax is an industry of some value. Bee-keeping was practised by the Egyptians, 

 Greeks, and Romans, as a source of wealth ; but in more modern times the introduc- 

 tion of sugar and its substitutes have reduced the importance of honey to a con- 

 siderable extent. Nevertheless, the attention given to apiculture has resulted 

 in great improvements in hives and other appliances, and the contrast is 

 great between bee-farming, as practised in most civilised countries, and the system 

 still in vogue in Russia and Poland, where the bees are kept in forests as in pre- 

 Egyptian days. 



. ._.. „ The leaf-cutter bees which, unlike honey-bees, live solitary 



Leaf -Cutter Bees. ' . 



lives, construct their nests in old tree-stumps or in the ground, 

 making thimble - shaped cells from pieces bitten out of leaves, and in these 



