QUEEN, WORKER, AND DRONE. 9 



Against the readiness of the bees of the present day to 

 sting we may set the improved means of controlling and 

 quieting them, such as were undreamt of even ten years 

 ago. These are all the more necessary, as under the modern 

 systems of management, bees require a good deal more 

 manipulation than when they were kept in the old-fashioned 

 straw-hive, in which the only variety in their somewhat un- 

 eventful existence was when at the end of the season they 

 were placed over the brimstone pit and cruelly and waste- 

 fully sinothered. Now-a-days, not only is the return of 

 honey from a swarm of a given weight very much larger, but 

 the price is higher, and the bees are not destroyed. Under 

 the modern system of bee-keeping, to get the best and 

 largest results, more time is required than formerly ; but the 

 quantity of honey produced (sometimes as much as isolbs. 

 from a single stock in a favourable season) is so large that 

 the extra labour is well paid for. 



Before describing the movable comb hive system, it will 

 be well to consider the internal economy of a stock of bees, 

 as commonly found in the common straw hive, in order to 

 understand how the change from one to the other may be 

 effected. 



Queen. Worker. Drone. 



Fig. I. 

 A stock of bees in summer is made up of three entirely 

 different sorts of bee, each having its own distinct duties to 

 perform, but all working for the common weal. The first 

 and most important is the queen, the only perfect female and 

 mother of all the other bees in the hive. _ In appearance 

 she is much larger than the others, and wherever she moves 

 about the combs she is attended by about a dozen of the 

 workers, who are constantly' feeding and caressing her. 



