242 THE BEE NATION. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



DOMESTIC WORK. 



WITH the egg-laying of the queen begins the special 

 work of the hive in connection with the maintenance 

 and propagation of the family. The principle of division of 

 labor, which we have already seen carried to so great an 

 extent among ants, is here also fully developed. 



The whole activity of the hive may be divided into two 

 parts, domestic and abroad, the domestic being, as a rule, 

 performed by the younger, and the work abroad by the older 

 bees. This is very easy to establish, for the younger bees 

 are readily distinguished from the older by color and out- 

 side appearance, and are recognisable especially by a fine 

 white down and unsoiled wings. The easier domestic work, 

 requiring less exertion, falls quite naturally to the share of 

 the weaker bees, while the harder and dangerous work out- 

 side belongs to the older and stronger. Yet there are con- 

 siderable grounds for the opinion that a number of older 

 bees remain in the hive to give the younger ones instruction 

 and guidance in their tasks. The young bees themselves, 

 on emerging from the larval or pupal state, are not thoroughly 

 fit and ready, and endowed with the capabilities of their 

 race, as instinct-mongers imagine, but are so weak on the 

 first day after their emergence that they cannot even fly. 

 They require at least from twenty-four to thirty hours before 

 their full strength and capacities are developed. The case 

 of the queens would be similar, were it not that their im- 

 prisonment is, as a rule, prolonged over the time of change, 

 so that during this interval they can become fully developed. 



It cannot be doubted that, as said above, the young bees 

 receive instruction and guidance from the elder, and this the 

 more as the work within the hive is of a very various and 

 complicated sort, and it cannot be imagined that each indi- 

 vidual bee is born with the instinct for a special kind of 



