APIS. 323 



or to the impulse of emigration accompanied with a 

 host of adherents. She never leaves the hive when 

 once her duties have fully commenced, for by distinc- 

 tion of structure she is rendered incompetent to execute 

 any of the labours that devolve upon the workers; 

 her tongue is formed only to lap nutriment ; she has no 

 cysts for the secretion of wax, she is without the honey- 

 bag for conveying that liquid home, and her posterior 

 shanks are convex externally, and thus deficient in the 

 concave basket for carrying home the stores of pollen 

 or propolis, whilst their plantse are without the little 

 earlet at the top externally, or the close dense brush 

 arranged in rows within, which aid these workers in their 

 many manipulations. Her wings are too short to con- 

 vey her ponderous body through the air, and her sting 

 becomes stronger by being curved. Thus she is exone- 

 rated from labour by the incapacity of her structure to 

 execute it, although her duties are quite as incessant and 

 as arduous, being indispensable to the perpetuation of 

 the species. 



Her consort, the dkone, is the male of the hive, and 

 although the queen is monandrous or single-spoused, 

 and although the hive during the season rarely throws 

 ofiF more than three swarms, usually restricted to the 

 accompaniment of a single queen, and thus but three 

 males are absolutely required, nature is so provident of 

 the great design of perpetuation, that to provide against 

 the possibility of its frustration, the hive usually pro- 

 duces about a thousand drones. A peculiarity in the 

 structure of the drone which facilitates his discovery of 

 the virgin qi;een when she issues from the hive on the 

 bridal excursion, which she makes preliminary to her 

 heading a swarm of emigrants, or assuming monarchy 



Y 2 



