THE CONTENTS OF THE HIVE. 27 



Very frequently a massacre of drones takes place 

 earlier in the season, but this is a sign that food is 

 running short owing to unfavourable weather ; and if 

 in addition to the turning out of the drones white 

 grubs are found outside the hive, that circumstance 

 may be taken as a sign that food is absolutely neces- 

 sary to save the stock, if not from actual starvation, at 

 any rate from being rendered practically useless for 

 the season. The weight of a stock at such times is 

 not a safe guide to the amount of stores, as the hive 

 may be weighty in consequence of the presence of a 

 large quantity of brood in various stages. 



WOEKBES OE NeUTEES. 



Workers (Fig. 4), or as they are sometimes termed 

 neuters, are really undeveloped females. As such they 

 have not the power normally of egg-laying. The worker 

 is produced in twenty-one days from an egg deposited 

 in one of the small horizontal cells. Upon bees of this 

 class devolves the work of the hive. For the first fort- 

 night or thereabouts of their existence, they remain at 

 home, preparing, in their capacity of nurses, the food 

 for the grubs and queen. When this duty ceases, a 

 work commences that, comparatively speaking, soon 

 terminates their existence. Henceforward the worker 

 bees labour unceasingly from morning to night, weather 

 permitting, in gathering nectar and pollen from honey- 

 producing flowers. The life of a worker bee is in the 

 summer time at the most only seven or eight weeks, 

 the average length of life being forty-six days. Those 

 bees which are hatched in the autumn, say, in Sep- 



