14 THE BOOK OF BEE-KEEPING. 



be produced at the time of swarming. If they were reared for 

 the sake of the warmth they are presumed to produce, one 

 would naturally suppose that they would be allowed to remain 

 in the hive all through the winter, or, at least, later in the season 

 than they do. Presuming a hive has swarmed, and turned out 

 the drones at the usual time, and the same is placed in a field 

 of buckwheat during August, the bees would, if they required 

 the drones for increasing the temperature for evaporating pur- 

 poses, raise others ; but they do not. We are strongly of 

 opinion, that the duties of the drones are to fertilise the 

 queens, and that only. The bees turn them out in July, 

 those which swarm early being the first, as a rule, to accomplish 

 this end ; only in the case of a queenless colony — which 

 usually collects very little honey — are they allowed to remain 

 for any lengthened period beyond that date. A queenless colony 

 requires the drones to fertilise the virgin queens, but which queens, 

 when there are no eggs or larvas to rear them from, are never 

 produced, although the bees' instincts to preserve the drones 

 for such an event are stronger than the knowledge of their 

 condition ; but introduce a fertile queen, and they are at once 

 turned out. 



28. The Worker. — This is an undeveloped female. It has 

 strong jaws, so strong that it can chop up paper, cut linen 

 tape, gnaw through straw, and, according to A. I. Root, of 

 Ohio, U.S.A., can gnaw wood ; this latter we have never 

 seen, but, upon the word of such an observant bee-keeper, to 

 negative it would be impolitic. We have, unfortunately, found 

 that bass — the material used by gardeners for tying flowers — is 

 as easily cut through, by their strong jaws as the plastic wax 

 with which they form their combs. On one occasion, when trans- 

 ferring a stock, there being no tape obtainable, we used this 

 material for tying in the combs ; the next morning 

 all this was gnawed away, the consequence being 

 that most of the combs dropped out of the frames. 

 Everyone knows the worker bee who has seen it in 

 the garden or field, as it flits from flower to 

 flower, in its eager search for either nectar or pol- 

 len. The smallest kind of bee in the hive, but 

 doing the largest amount of work. It is about ^in. 

 The Worker. '" length, but when filled with honey nearly |in. 

 It has, as all bee-keepers know, a sting ; this sting, 

 instead of being curved like the queen's, is quite straight. One 

 can very easily make the bees expose their stings, by turning 

 back the quilt of a bar-frame hive, and allowing the breath to 

 enter ; instantly a number will unsheath them, each with its tiny 

 drop of poison near the tip, turning them by a movement of 

 their bodies upwards. The smell of this poison is quite dis- 

 cernible, even at a distance, and seems to infuriate other bees, 



