THE SOVEREIGN WORKER-BEE 143 
mount task of honey-getting, she seems to leave 
the pollen alone. Thus, in a normal colony, the 
life of the honey-bee, short as it is, is carefully 
planned out from beginning to end, each period 
having its special task for which the age of the 
bee is peculiarly fitted. Yet this rule is no more 
absolute than any other of the ways of the hive. 
Where the community is short-handed, and there 
are not enough mature workers to gather stores, 
the young bees will be turned out to forage at 
a much earlier date in their career. In the same 
way, if a hive has been without a queen for some 
time, and therefore few young bees are available 
to care for the brood when the new mother-bee 
has at last established herself, many of the old 
workers will stay at home and busy themselves 
with the nursery-work, which in the ordinary 
course they would have long since relinquished. 
There are many such instances of ingenious 
makeshift, or special adaptation, in the ways of 
the honey-bee. She is a creature full of resource 
on emergencies, but it is in the provision of 
desperate remedies for really desperate ills that 
she shines at her brightest. The prime disaster 
in bee-life is the loss of a queen at a time when it 
is impossible to appoint a successor. The standard 
of intelligence, as well as that of character, varies 
among bees almost as much as it does amon 
men. Some colonies will work harder and for 
longer hours than the rest. Others will ease off 
