36 
On Rational Bee-Keeping, 
THE WORKER BEE. 
It is a well-known fact that the worker bee is a 
female, as we have said already ; and that, in the 
case of the queen’s disappearance, some of the 
workers deposit eggs in the cells, which come 
to perfection, but which only 
produce drones ; so that every 
hive which only contains work- 
ers, and no queen, must neces- 
sarily perish. The worker bee 
takes twenty-one days to pass through the 
stages of egg, larva, and nymph, and arrive at 
maturity. In a few days after leaving her cell, 
she goes out to collect honey, and takes her 
share in the work of the hive. 
The worker bee is so called because she alone 
works at the construction of the comb, collects 
the honey, provides food for the brood, keeps 
the hive free from anything obnoxious, and 
defends the colony from all internal and exter- 
nal enemies. 
As to the supposed equal division of all this 
labour in a hive, we cannot admit such to be a 
fact. 
I. Because the bees who come home laden 
