66 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
Toe Worker-Beet. 
158. The workers are the smallest inhabitants of a bee- 
hive, and compose the bulk of the pop- 
ulation. A good swarm ought to contain 
at least 20,000; and in large hives, strong 
colonies which are not reduced by swarm- 
ing, frequently number four or five times 
as many during the height of the breeding 
season. ba 
159. Their functions are varied. The young bees work 
inside of the hive, prepare and distribute the food to the 
larvee, take care of the queen, by brushing her with their 
tongue, nurse her, maintain the heat of the hive, or renew 
the air and evaporate the newly-gathered honey (249), by 
ventilating (744). They clean the hive of dirt or débris, 
close up all the cracks, and secrete the greater part of the 
wax which is produced in the hive. 
The old bees may, if necessary, do a part of the same 
work; but, as we have seen, (89), old age renders some 
unfit to prepare the food of the larvae. More alert than 
the young bees, they do the outside work, gather honey 
(246), pollen (263), and water (271), for the use of 
the family, and propolis (236) to cement the cracks.* 
Fig. 23. 
160. ‘Dzierzon states it asa fact, that worker-bees attend 
more exclusively to the domestic concerns of the colony in the 
early period of life; assuming the discharge of the more active 
* Huber speaks of two kinds of workers: ‘‘One of theseis, in general, destined 
for the elaboration of wax, and its size is considerably enlarged when full of 
honey; the other immediately imparts what it has collected, to its companions; 
its abdomen undergoes no sensible change, or it retains only the honey neces- 
sary for its own subsistence. The particular function of the bees of this kind 
isto take care of the young, for they are not charged with provisioning the hive. 
In opposition to the wax-workers, we shall call them small bees, or nurses.’’ 
‘*Although the external difference be inconsiderable, this is not an imagin- 
ary distinction. Anatomical observations prove that the stomach is not the 
