12 



colony. The queen is not often seen without opening the hive, 

 and even then it is not easy for the novice to locate her. 



Fig. 10. — Queen Bee Fig. 11. — ^Drone Bee Fig. 12. — Worker Bee 



Functions o? the Bees 



The worker bees (see Fig. 12) are females which are not 

 fully developed, and structurally modified in some ways from 

 the queen, the fully developed female. 



The queen's eggs which produce the natural worker bees in 

 twenty-one days, may produce a queen in sixteen days. The 

 size of cell in which the baby queen is cradeled and the quan- 

 tity and quahty of food fed her apparently changes the destiny 

 of the common worker, one of thousands to be the mother bee 

 of the colony, at times the mother of every bee in the hive except 

 herself. The functions of the worker bees are varied and many. 

 They build combs from the wax secreted by their own bodies, 

 gather nectar from the flowers of trees and plants, carry it 

 to the hives and deposit it in the combs to ripen it, largely by 

 their own efforts until it becomes honey when they cap it ovef 

 or seal it as the housewife does her canned fruits until the time 

 of need. They also gather pollen, the fecundating dust of the 

 anthers of flowers, in the pollen baskets with which nature has 

 provided them and store it in the combs for future use as food 

 for the adults and baby bees. They bring home quantities of 

 water, clean house in the spring, keep it clean during the sum- 

 mer or active season, guard the entrance to the home and, if 

 need be, defend it with their lives. They feed and care for the 

 young bees, protect so far as they are able the mother or queen, 



