86 Characteristics of Queen, 
2S) are relatively shorter than those of either the workers 
or drones, for instead of attaining to the end of the body, 
they reach but little beyond the third joint of the abdomen. 
The queen, though she has the characteristic posterior tibia 
and basal tarsus (Fig. 28, 4),in respect to breadth, has not 
the cavity and surrounding hairs which form the pollen bas- 
kets of the workers. . The legs of the queen (Fig. 28), are 
large and strong, but like her body, they have not the pol- 
len gathering hairs which are so well marked in the worker. 
The queen possesses a sting which is longer than that of the 
worker, and resembles that of the bumble-bee in being 
curved (Fig. 23), and that of bumble-bees and wasps in 
having few and short barbs—the little projections which 
point back like the barb of a fish-hook, and which, in case 
of the workers, prevent the withdrawing of the instrument, 
when once fairly inserted. While there are seven quite 
prominent barbs on each shaft of the worker’s sting (Fig. 
51), there are only three on those of the queen, and these 
are very short. As in case of the barbs of the worker’s 
sting, so here, they are successively shorter as we recede 
from the point of the weapon. Even Aristotle discovered 
that a queen will rarely use her sting. I have often tried 
to get a queen to sting me, but without success: Neighbour 
gives three cases where queens used their stings, in one of 
which she was disabled from farther egg-laying. She 
stings with slight effect. The use of the queen’s sting is to 
dispatch arival queen. The brain of the queen is relatively, 
small. We should expect this, as the queen’s functions are 
vegetative. So the worker, possessed of more intricate 
functions, is much more highly organized. 
Schiemenz and Schonfeld are unquestionably correct in 
the belief that the queen, and the drones as well, are fed by 
the workers, the same food that the larve are fed. Thus 
the digestion is performed for both queen and drones. * 
I have known queens to lay over 3,000 eggs a day. 
These I find weigh .3900 grams, while the queen only 
weighs, .2299 grams. Thus the queen may lay daily nearly 
double her own weight of eggs. This of course, could 
only be possible as she was fed highly nutritious food, 
which was wholly digested for her. Schonfeld finds that 
