I 14 The Honey-Makers 



on tlieir shoulders ; and when he is quite tired, they carry 

 him outright." 



Even as late as the time of Shakespeare the monarchical 

 character of life in the hive was a matter of faith as we 

 learn from " Henry V.," where the Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, in talking to the king, uses the bees in illustration, — 



" For so work the honey-bees, 

 Creatures that by a rule in nature teach 

 The act of order to a peopled kingdom : 

 They have a king, and officers of sorts ; 

 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home. 

 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, 

 Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 

 Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; 

 Which pillage they with merry march bring home 

 To the tent-royal of their emperor. 

 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 

 The singing masons building roofs of gold. 

 The civil citizens kneading up the honey. 

 The poor mechanic porters crowding in 

 Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, 

 The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum, 

 Delivering o'er to executors pale 

 The lazy yawning drone." 



The bee which the old writers called the king is to-day 

 called the queen. It is known to be a female, the only 

 perfect female in the hive. It is also known that she is 

 not a queen. She is a mother, the mother of all the 

 colony. 



The great mass of bees are the workers, which are im- 

 perfect — that is, undeveloped — females, unable as a rule 

 to produce eggs. 



The drones, comparatively few in number, are males. 



The sex of the worker-bees, which are the ones we see 

 flying about, is now well-known ; but in poetry and htera- 

 ture the conventional masculine pronoun is always appUed 



