130 ANIMAL FORMS 
twenty to two hundred workers. Regular combs are not 
constructed, the young at first feeding on pollen masses or 
“bee-bread,” and finally spinning cocoons. In the late 
summer males and females appear, but as winter comes on 
all perish except the queens, which seek a sheltered place, 
and in the spring revive to establish new colonies. 
In a wild state the houey-bees dwell in cavities of trees 
and other protected places, where they form colonies, 
consisting of the queen, of per- 
haps two hundred males or 
drones if the nest be examined 
in the spring and summer, and 
of a hundred times as many 
sterile females, the workers. 
These form among the most 
highly organized insect soci- 
eties known. All work for the 
good of the colony. To each 
worker is assigned a definite task, which is never shirked. 
It must collect the honey, supply the wax for making the 
comb, take care of the brood, or in other ways minister to 
the welfare of the community. On the queen devolves 
the entire task of egg-laying. She may lay three thousand 
eggs a day and be fully occupied during the three or four 
years that she lives. The drones, or males, fertilize most 
of the eggs, and are then driven out from the hive, after 
a stay of a month or two. The eggs unfertilized by the 
drones are placed in large cells, and the young fed on 
pollen develop into males. The fertilized eggs may pro- 
duce queens or workers at the discretion of the queen. If 
the latter be desired, the eggs are placed in small cells with 
a scant amount of food, which apparently causes the repro- 
ductive system to remain undeveloped. The same eggs, if 
placed in the large queen cells and supplied with highly 
nutritious food, would have developed into queens. When 
these latter appear they are vigorously attacked and killed 
Fie. 80.—Bumblebee (Bombus). 
