~HYMENOPTHRA. — 319 
a sonorous and buzzing sound, have no palettes on their legs, the 
hairs on their tarsi are not appropriated to the work of gathering, 
their mandibles are shorter, and they have no acu/eus, or sting, 
which is the working bee’s weapon. 
The female, or queen (Fig. 313), is smaller than the male, and 
has a longer body than the working bees, and the wings, shorter 
in proportion, cover only the half of its body, whereas with the 
other bees they cover it entirely. The only part she has to play 
is that of laying eggs, and so she has no palettes and brushes. 
The sovereign is, as suits her supreme rank, exempted from all 
work. She is always escorted by a certain number of working 
bees, who brush her, lick her, present honey to her with their 
trunks, save her every kind of fatigue, and compose a train worthy 
of her feminine majesty. One very remarkable fact is that only 
one queen lives in each hive. Perfect sovereign of this tiny state, 
she rules over a people of some thousands of workers. It is not 
rare to find twenty thousand working bees in a hive, and all 
submissively obey their sovereign. The number of males is 
scarcely one-tenth part of that of the working bees; and they only 
live about three months. The workers represent the active life of 
the community. 
“The exterior of a hive,’ says M. Victor Rendre, “ gives the 
best idea of this people, essentially laborious. From sun-rise to 
sunset, all is movement, diligence, bustle ; it is an incessant series 
of goings and comings, of various operations which begin, con- 
tinue, and end, to be recommenced. Hundreds of bees arrive 
from the fields, laden with materials and provisions; others cross 
them and go in their turn into the country. Here, cautious 
sentinels scrutinise every fresh arrival; there, purveyors, in a 
hurry to be back at work again, stop at the entrance to the hive, 
where other bees unload them of their burdens; elsewhere it is a 
working bee which engages in a hand-to-hand encounter with a 
rash stranger; farther on the surveyors of the hive clear it of 
everything which might interfere with the traffic or be prejudicial 
to health; at another point the workers are occupied in drawing 
out the dead body of one of their companions; all the outlets are 
besieged by a crowd of bees coming in and going out, the doors 
hardly suffice for this hurrying, busy multitude. All appears 
