DOMESTICATED INSECTS 253 
developed females, specialized in various ways so as to be able to 
perform efficiently the varied duties necessary to the maintenance 
of the community (fig. 1183). The queen is comparatively large, 
with slender body, short wings, and a curved sting. Maternity 
is her sole function, and she is fed and tended with the greatest 
assiduity by the workers. Except for the nuptial flight, and 
when migrating with a “swarm” to fresh quarters, she does not 
leave the hive. Only a single queen is tolerated by workers 
in the same community, and if one should happen to emerge 
from a “royal cell” while the reigning queen is still in the hive 
a duel to the death en- 
sues. If a queen should 
intrude from outside the 
result may be similar, 
or the workers may mob 
the interloper, though 
they will not sting her, 
and death by starvation 
or suffocation is com- 
monly her fate. A 
queen is astonishingly 
fertile, and under fa- 
vourable circumstances 
is capable of laying 
from two thousand to 
three thousand eggs in 
a day. Some of these are unfertilized, and develop into drones, 
but the majority are fertilized, and are usually destined to pro- 
duce females, though it is not impossible that some of these 
also may give rise to drones. The life of a queen extends 
over four or five years. 
The stingless drones are smaller and stouter than the queen, 
and distinguished by the enormous size of their compound eyes. 
They do absolutely no work, but their presence is patiently 
submitted to until the end of the summer, because a minute 
percentage of them are destined to become the fathers of com- 
munities. At the approach of autumn, when food is becoming 
scarce, the drones are mercilessly expelled from the hive, or 
even, according to some authorities, ruthlessly slaughtered. 
The workers are smaller than the drones, and distinguished 
Fig. 1183.—Honey-Bee (Agzs mellifica), enlarged 
A, Queen; B, worker; c, drone. 
