86 Characteristics of ^ueen. 



;6) ere relatively shortei- than those of either the workers 

 or drones, for instead of attaining to the end of the body, 

 they reach but little beyond the third joint of the abdomen. 

 The queen, though she lias the characteristic posterior tibia 

 and basal tarsus (Fig. 28,/), in respect to breadth, has not 

 the cavity and surrounding liairs which form the pollen bas- 

 kets of the workers. The legs of the queen (Fig. 28), are 

 large and strong, but like her body, they have not the pol- 

 len gathering hairs which are so well marked in the worker. 

 The queen possesses a sting which is longer than that of the 

 worker, and resembles that of the bumble-bee in being 

 curved (Fig. 23), and that of bumble-bees and wasps in 

 having few and short barbs — the little projections which 

 point back like the barb of a fish-hook, and which, in case 

 of the workers, prevent the withdrawing of the instrument, 

 when once fairly inserted. While there are seven quite 

 prominent barbs on each shaft of the worker's sting (Fig. 

 51), there are only three on those of the queen, and these 

 are very short. As in case of the barbs of the worker's 

 sting, so here, they are successively shorter as we recede 

 from the point of the weapon. Even Aristotle discovered 

 that a queen will rarely use her sting. I have often tried 

 (o get a queen to sting me, but without success. Neighbour 

 gives three cases where queens used their stings, in one of 

 which she was disabled from farther egg-laying. She 

 stings with slight effect. The use of the queen's sting is to 

 dispatch a rival queen. The brain of the queen is relatively 

 small. We should expect this, as the queen's functions are 

 vegetative. So the worker, possessed of more intricate 

 functions, is much more highly organized. 



Schiemenz and Schonfeld are unquestionably correct in 

 the belief that the queen, and the drones as well, are fed by 

 the workers, the same food that the larvse are fed. Thus 

 the digestion is performed for both queen and drones. 



I have known queens to lay over 3,000 eggs a day. 

 These I find weigh .3900 grams, while the queen only 

 weighs, .2299 grams. Thus the queen may lay daily nearly 

 double her own weight of eggs. This of course, could 

 only be possible as she was fed highlv nutritious food, 

 which was wholly digested for her. Schonfeld finds that 



