THE SOVEREIGN WORKER-BEE 143 



mount task of honey-getting, she seems to leave 

 the pollen alone. Thus, in a normal colony, the 

 life of the honey-bee, short as it is, is carefully 

 planned out from beginning to end, each period 

 having its special task for which the age of the 

 bee is peculiarly fitted. Yet this rule is no more 

 absolute than any other of the ways of the hive. 

 Where the community is short-handed, and there 

 are not enough mature workers to gather stores, 

 the young bees will be turned out to forage at 

 a much earlier date in their career. In the same 

 way, if a hive has been without a queen for some 

 time, and therefore few young bees are available 

 to care for the brood when the new mother-bee 

 has at last established herself, many of the old 

 workers will stay at home and busy themselves 

 with the nursery-work, which in the ordinary 

 course they would have long since relinquished. 



There are many such instances of ingenious 

 makeshift, or special adaptation, in the ways of 

 the honey-bee. She is a creature full of resource 

 on emergencies, but it is in the provision of 

 desperate remedies for really desperate ills that 

 she shines at her brightest. The prime disaster 

 in bee-life is the loss of a queen at a time when it 

 is impossible to appoint a successor. The standard 

 of intelligence, as well as that of character, varies 

 among bees almost as much as it does among 

 men. Some colonies will work harder and for 

 longer hours than the rest. Others will ease off 



