CO 
THE SENSES OF BEES. 
friend, he was treated as a trespasser; nor was he 
ever able after this period to perform any operation 
with them, or to approach within their precincts, 
without exciting their anger. Here then it is pretty 
evident that some change Had taken place in the 
Counsellor’s secretions in consequence of the fever, 
which though not noticeable by his friends, w r as 
offensive to the olfactory nerves of the Bees." * 
Functions of the inmates of a hive . — A hive con- 
sists of the Queen, or mother-bee, the Workers vary- 
ing iu numbers, from 1 0,000, to 20,000 or 30,000, 
and the Males or Drones, from 700 to double that- 
number. 
Functions of the Queen . — (see PI. I. Fig. 2.) — 
The Queen is the parent of the hive ; and her sole 
province and occupation consist in laying the eggs, 
from which originate those prodigious multitudes 
that people a hive, and emigrate from it in the 
course of one summer. In the height of the season, 
her fertility is truly astonishing, as she lays not fewer 
than 200 eggs per day, and even more when the 
season is particularly warm and genial, and flowers 
are abundant ; and this laying continues, though at a 
gradually diminishing rate, till the approach of cold 
weather iu October. So early as February, she re- 
sumes her labours in the same department, and sup- 
plies the great blank made in the population by 
the numerous casualties that take place between the 
end of summer and commencement of spring. Her 
great laying of the eggs of workers begins generally 
* Bevan’s Honey-Bee, p. 304. 
