Cottager and Smallholder 3 
in comparison to the size of the body are shorter, the back 
is darker in colour, while the underside of the abdomen has 
a golden tinge. The natural life of a queen is five years. 
She is in her prime in the second season, and should not as 
« rule be kept beyond that period. 
A two year old queen is capable of laying from two to three 
thousand eggs a day. The output of eggs is regulated by the 
workers. They feed the queen upon digested food, and if an 
abundance of this is given a large number of eggs are pro- 
duced, but if the queen is fed sparingly their number is 
reduced accordingly. 
There is but one queen in the hive; a dual monarchy is 
not tolerated. Rival queens, if present, will fight each other 
until only one remains. The queen has a sting which is 
Fig. 3. 
curved; it is only used on an adversary. She leaves the hive 
on two occasions—as a virgin for mating (this when once 
accomplished lasts for life), and when accompanying a swarm. 
Workers are undeveloped females, and are the labourers of 
the hive. They are small and very active, have a per- 
fectly straight sting which is used in defence of the home and 
its contents. They gather nectar from the flowers and 
convert it into honey, store and seal it over in the cells, 
secrete wax, build the combs, and collect and bring in pollen 
and propolis. The former, the farinaceous food of bees, the 
latter, a gummy substance gathered from the buds of trees, 
used as a cement in the hive for stopping crevices, &c. The 
duration of. a worker’s life in the working season is about 
six weeks, her strenuons labours wearing her out in this short 
period. Workers born in the autumn having very little work 
to do live till the following spring. 5 
B 
