HYMENOPTERA. 317 
During the greater part of the year the population of our hives 
is composed exclusively of two sorts of individuals—the female, or 
mother bee, called also the queen bee; and the working bees, or 
neuters, which are, properly speaking, females incompletely deve- 
loped. A third kind of individuals, the males, called also drones, 
are generally not met with except from May to July. 
The working bees are the people, the crowd, the servum pecus, 
the living force, the bee community. They are 
recognised by their small size, reddish brown 
colour, and, above all, by the palettes and brushes 
with which the hind legs are furnished. ah 
The three pairs of legs which are inserted in 4, het en Bhs 
its thorax are its tools. The two hind-legs are (47s elie. 
longer than the other pairs, and present on the exterior a tri- 
angular depression, resembling a palette, which is surrounded 
by stiff hairs, forming, as it were, the borders of a sort of basket, 
in which the insect deposits the pollen of flowers. The broadest 
part of the leg articulates with the tarsus, which is of a square 
form, smooth on the exterior, and having hairs on its interior 


Fig. 310.—Leg of a Bee (magnified), Fig. 311.—Trunk of a Bee (magnified). 
surface, which has caused it to be named the brush. The joint 
is used for gathering the pollen; it folds back on the leg 
(Fig. 310), and forms with it a sort of small pair of pincers ; and, 
finally, the leg is terminated by four smaller articulations, the last 
