18 BEE-CULTURE. 
proceeds. The number of eggs which she deposits in the cells during 
a single season is truly astonishing, amounting to hundreds and even 
thousands in a single day, as may be witnessed by those who use ob- 
servatory hives. 
THE WORKER. 
The workers are so called because they perform all the labor of the 
colony. ‘They seem to have no other propensity except to labor in 
various ways and to accumulate stores for the subsistence of the family 
and such is their propensity in this direction that they often accumu- 
late much more than is found needful for their own supplies, and are 
able and, I doubt not, are willing to furnish a liberal quantum of honey 
to their keeper to defray their necessary expenses, such as house-rent 
and the time which is bestowed upon them. ‘They uniformly pay better 
for a good tenement than for a poor one. They like to work to advan- 
tage, and never like to be in debt, and if they are, it is not so much their 
fault as that of the keeper, who fails to place them in favorable circum- 
stances, in which they can give full scope to their natural instincts. 
Their industry is proverbial. Some are employed during the working 
season as sentinels, some in comb-building, some in gathering and 
storing up honey, some in nursing or feeding the young, some in. 
pasting over, mason like, the crevices and joints of the hive, some in 
removing from the hive offending substances, and others, like a kind 
of body guard, seem to bestow special attention upon the queen. 
Whether the principle of the division of labor is strictly adhered to by 
them, or separate classes of Bees perform constantly the same kind of 
labor, or whether they are employed alternately or promiscuously in 
different departments of labor, is a point which is not satisfactorily 
settled by any observations or experiments which have hitherto been 
made. Their number varies in different swarms, from twelve to forty 
thousand, according to circumstances, the size of the hive or the 
degree of prosperity which they enjoy. They are styled neuters, but 
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