§ IV.] THE WORKER. 29 



The population of a liive is very small during the 

 winter in comparison with the vast numbers gathering 

 produce in the summer — produce which they themselves 

 live to enjoy but for a short period. So that not only, 

 as of old, may lessons of industry be learned from bees, 

 but they also teach self-denial to mankind, since they 

 labour for the community rather than for themselves. 

 Dr. Bevan, in describing the age of bees, thus adapts 

 the well-known lines of Homer in allusion to the fleeting 

 generations of men : — ■ 



"Like leaves on trees the race of bees is found, 

 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; 

 Another race the spring or fall supplies, 

 They droop successive, and successive rise." 



With regard to the functions of worker bees, Huber 

 supposed that there were two distinct classes, one act- 

 ing as gatherers of store and the other as nurses of 

 brood. This however has been demonstrated to be a 

 mistake, for the distinction is not one of class, but simply 

 of age, the younger workers, for the first two or three 

 weeks of their existence,* assuming the whole of the 

 inner or home occupations — viz., those of feeding 

 the larv», the queen, and the drones, and of making wax, 

 building comb, and closing the cells, as well as keeping 



* German observations cited by Von Berlepsch give from ten to 

 nineteen days. The Baron gives provisionally the sixteenth day as 

 the rule. The first sporting before the hive is given at from the 

 fourth to the tenth day. 



