igo ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY AND ENTOMOLOGY 



Queens live, usually, if no accident befalls, two or three years; 

 an age of four or five years is occasionally attained. Most of 

 the drones in each community either die naturally before win- 

 ter conies or are killed by the workers. Feeble 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 flowerless season are for any reason not likely to prove 

 sufficient for so large a number 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 not a 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 partic- 

 ular function; but the workers have numerous varied perform- 

 ances to achieve if the community shall live successfully. It 

 might be expected by 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- polymor- 

 phism 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 polymorphism among the workers exists; many ant species 

 have two and even three kinds of workers, the termites have 

 soldiers as well as workers, etc. We purpose now to describe 

 briefly each of the principal special industries achieved by the 

 workers, at the same time describing the structural specializa- 

 tion connected with each of these industries. 



