IV.] THE WORKER. 



as May. Now and then a drone or two escape, and pro- 

 long their lives through the winter. 



§ IV. THE WORKER. 



The working bees form by far the most numerous ot 

 the three classes contained in the hive. They are the 

 smallest of the bees ; in colour they are dark brown or 

 nearly black (except the Italians and other foreign 

 varieties), and they are distinguished by their activity 

 upon the wing. As to their numbers in a colony, " an 

 ordinary first swarm from a straw hive," says Von 

 Berlepsch, "contains from twelve to twenty thousand, 

 but I have had large wood hives in which, at a 

 moderate computation, there were living at the end of 

 June about a hundred thousand bees : " from thirty to 

 fifty thousand, however, wiR better represent the strength 

 of an average stock in an English hive. The worker, 

 though formerly spoken of under the term "neuter," 

 is of the same sex as the queen, but is only partially 

 developed, and thus, with some exceptions (see § ix.), 

 it is incapable of laying eggs. But any egg which 

 would ordinarily produce a worker bee may, by the cell 

 being enlarged and the "royal jelly" supplied to the 

 larva, be hatched into a mature and .perfect queen. 

 This most curious fact may be verified in any apiary by 

 most interesting experiments, which are capable of being 

 turned to important use. 



The lives of the worker bees vary very greatly, and 



