186 



BRANCH ARTHROPODA 



may be, several queens are so developed. When these young queens emerge, 

 the old queens at once enter into battle with them. All new queens are 

 killed but one, which the workers guard. The old queen leaves the hive 

 accompanied by a swarm of workers and founds a new colony. The work- 

 ers at once begin to secrete wax by gorging themselves with honey and then 

 together " hang quietly in a curtain-like mass, the upper bees clinging to 

 the roof of the hive and the lower ones to tiie bees above them. After 

 about twenty-four hours there appear little flakes of wax that are forced 

 out from openings between the ventral abdominal segments, called wax- 

 pockets. Those wax scales continue to increase in area and soon pro- 

 ject beyond the margin, and either fall off or are plucked off by other workers 

 or by the wax-producing worker itself. "' Other workers construct it into 

 comb, the trowel-Uke mandibles pressing it into hexagonal cells. Each 

 comb consists of a double layer of cells separated by a common partition. 

 New wax is used in forming cells for storing honey, but old wax or wax 

 mixed with pollen may be used for brood-cells. The workers also carry 

 " propolis," a sticky, gummy substance with which they at once stop the 

 chinks of their hive. They carry water also to the thirsty larva'. By 

 steadily and rapidly vibrating their wings a set of workers stationed at the 

 exit or scattered about the floor form currents of air, thus ventilating the 

 hive. Another set acts as scavengers and carry off all dead and decaying 

 debris from the floor and walls. Still another set guards the entrance from 

 intruders, such as neighboring bees, yellow-jackets, and bee-moths. For 

 guarding against the minute bee-lice and bacterial diseases the help of man, 

 " the bee-keeper," is needed. Kellogg gives an obser\'ation hive and how 

 to make it, which would be well worth trying. For after you have studied 

 carefully these, shall 1 say, intelligent little creatures you will find it, indeed, 

 difficult to decide which of their actions are reflex, instinctive, or intelligent, 

 or which are all of these combined. 



Classification. — 

 Class I. Crusta'cca. 



Sub-class En'tomos'traca. 



