WORKER BEES. 193 



fashion, and armed with hairs as rough as those of a brush, 

 gathered together in little pellets the grains of pollen which 

 have remained about the hairs with which its body is covered. 

 There are five or six bees whose baskets are well laden. Some 

 have collected their burden from a single flower ; and it is 

 easy to ascertain from what flower, however far it may grow 

 from the hive. The powder this one bears is white ; the bee 

 has been wallowing, if we may use such a word, in a mallow, 

 whilst his companion, covered- with brown powder, has been 

 plundering the tulips. That yellow pollen comes from the 

 blossom of a melon, (fee. &o. Some of those who arrive enter 

 the door; others deliver up their provisions to other bees who 

 receive them at the door, and as soon as they have got rid of 

 their burden they resume their flight. They are not at all less 

 busy inside of the hive than without : these make with wax 

 hexagonal cells, in which others come and disgorge honey, 

 Other cells are kept empty : these are the nests destined for 

 the young bees. 



The hive is peopled by three sorts of bees : first one 

 female, that is the queen ; males, called drones, to the number' 

 of nearly two thousand ; and eight or ten thousand workers, 

 without sex, which consequently do not multiply, having besides 

 plenty to do, and no time to spare for amusement. The queen,, 

 with her harem of drones, suffices for the reproduction of the 

 race — she lays at least six thousand eggs in a year ! Of these 

 eggs, some will produce females like herself; others, males; 

 and the remainder, in still greater numbers, workers without 

 sex. Whilst the queen is engaged in the duties of providing 

 another generation, all the workers are busy with the cradles 

 and the food of the numerous family which she will soon 

 bring into the world. 



There arrives a period when the workers have a great 

 operation to perform. The queen has no more time to waste 

 in love, she has other imperative tasks in view; the males 

 have completed their destiny, and being from that time use- 

 less and an incumbrance, the workers make a general massacre 

 of them, and cast their carcases out of the colony. The- 

 queen begins to lay : followed by a train of working bees, she 

 commences her progress over the cells. When, after examin- 

 ing the interior of one of these cells, she finds it to her mind, 







