166 A COUNTRY READER. 



that we may well imitate, it works without pause 

 or hesitation. It minds not and meddles not with 

 anyone else's business. Into its own life-task it 

 pours out all its strength, and then, when it has 

 done its very best to lay up a store for future 

 generations, at the end of some six weeks, 

 weakened by its labours, it is thrown out of 

 home to die. 



As with bees so with everything else, what we 

 know of them is very little compared with what 

 we do not know. We are all of us on a voyage 

 of discovery. 



Different Works. 



If you look into a hive you will see perhaps 

 20,000 honey-gatherers or workers, one larger 

 bee surrounded by a dozen or so of others. This 

 larger bee is the queen bee, whose work in life is 

 to lay eggs, as many as 2000 eggs in a single 

 day. There are a few hundred that apparently 

 do no work ; these are the males or drones. 



The swarm, or family, in a hive, consists of a 

 queen or mother bee, 20,000 or more workers, 

 and about 500 to 1000 drones. 



The queen is the mother who lays eggs. The 

 workers are undeveloped females who do not lay 

 eggs, but do the work of collecting and making 

 honey and wax, building the combs and forming 

 the cells in which are stored the honey and pollen, 



