98 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



Yet the truth is that the queen-bee is the vei 

 reverse of a monarch, both by nature and inclin; 

 tion. She possesses only the merest rudimem 

 of intelligence. She has a magnificent body, gre; 

 docility, certain almost unrestrainable impulse 

 and passions, a yielding, womanish love of th 

 yoke ; but she is incapable of action other tha 

 that arising from her bodily promptings. He 

 brain is much smaller than that of the worke 

 In a dozen different ways she is inferior to th 

 common worker-bees, who rule her absolutely 

 mapping out her entire daily life and using he 

 for the good of the colofly, just as a delicate, costl 

 piece of mechanism is used by human craftsme 

 to produce some necessary article of trade. 



In a word, the queen is the sole survivin 

 representative of the aboriginal female honey-bef 

 The aborted females, the workers, are almost a 

 much a product of civilisation as the human rac 

 itself. 



Every step of the way now, in a study of th 

 life of the bee, is hedged about with wonders. 1 

 is seen that the common worker-bee is raised in 

 cell allowing her only the barest minimum of spac 

 for development, while the queen has an apartmer 

 twice as long as she can possibly need. Th 

 worker-cells are so designed that as many a 

 possible may be contained in a given area, an^ 

 their construction involve the least possible amour 

 of material. Therefore these cells are made in th 



