The Life of the Individual 127 



the workers, which develop from eggs identical with those 

 from which queens develop, live from a few weeks in summer 

 to possibly six months over winter in the North. ^ Drones 

 usually hve not to exceed four months, unless they are in 

 queenless colonies, in which case they are sometimes reported 

 to live over winter. Death comes suddenly to the drone at 

 the time of mating, seemingly of shock. If a drone is caught 

 on the wing during the time of mating and is slightly pressed, 

 the male organs are ejected and the drone instantly dies. 

 Obviously this death by shock does not concern us in a 

 study of the normal term of life.^ 



The most interesting phases of this subject are the phe- 

 nomena observed in worker bees. Those bees which emerge 

 somewhat before the beginning of a heavy honey-flow, so 

 that they begin their field duties when there is heavy work 

 in gathering nectar, usually live only about six weeks, but 

 if when the outside work begins there is no nectar available, 

 the duration of life is much greater. Those workers which 

 emerge at the end of the brood-rearing season are the ones 

 which must live until the next spring if the colony is to sur- 

 vive. It is obvious, therefore, that the length of hfe of the 

 workers is influenced to a marked degree by the conditions 

 under which they live. Similarly, queens five longer if 

 they are called on to lay eggs less abundantly, and it is ob- 

 served that in the tropics and semi-tropics, queens do not 

 live as long as in the North, where the brood-rearing season 

 is relatively, short.' Further evidence of a similar nature is 

 afforded by various facts observed in practical beekeeping. 

 Some honey-flows seem to deplete the colony more than 



1 The method of determining the length of life of bees is identical with 

 that of determining the duties of bees at different ages. 



2 Bumblebee drones do not die at mating time, according to a quota- 

 tion given by Weismann, without the reference. 



' It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the length of life of queen 

 bees since they are superseded by the workers when they fail in egg-laying. 

 Death is often not natural with them. It is interesting to note that al- 

 though they can continue to form new eggs in the ovaries (in contrast to 

 some female insects which lay but one or two lots of eggs) they gradually 

 fail in this respect. 



