WORK FOR OTHERS. 169 



Work for Others 



is the great principle of the bee community. If 

 you are of use, well and good, but if you are old 

 and worn out and can no longer do what you 

 once could, we can't consider your past service, 

 we have neither the time nor room for hospitals 

 or places for aged bees, out you must go. 



" For the individual bee must be sacrificed 

 because it is more important that the race of 

 bees should live on in prosperity and strength 

 than that you should live on to become a useless 

 burden on us. If you, the old, inferior, and use- 

 less to this community, were to live on, we should 

 not have a sufficient number of vigorous workers 

 to build the combs, manufacture the wax and 

 honey, rear the young and protect the hive. It 

 takes us, the vigorous and young, all our time to 

 keep the race going." 



Parts of a Bee. 



It may be said that a bee is divided into three 

 sections, the head, the thorax or middle, and 

 the abdomen or hind part. These three different 

 sections are joined, but there is no internal 

 skeleton as there is in the animal body. 



A bee has six legs and four wings, and breathes 

 by tubes that extend along each side of its body. 

 These tubes are fringed with hair in order to 



