QUliE'f. 
DRONE. 
WORKER. 
Bees arc almost our only domesticated insect, and aside 
from their utility, possess many charms for the naturalist. 
These charms are derived from the variety and beautiful 
adaptation of their instincts to the ends for which they were 
created. Their industry, frugality, disposition to defend their 
homes against their enemies, their mode of propagating their 
species, their mechanical skill in constructing their combs, 
depositing honey and pollen, their care of their young, the 
production and destruction of drones at the proper seasons, 
their economy of animal heat in their hive, the means by 
which they know their home and where to find their honey, 
their ready recognition of the members of their own family, 
their means of conveying intelligence to one another so as to 
secure perfect unity of action, their collecting the most de- 
licious of sweets from the most beautiful objects in nature, — 
all conspire to make them an almost necessary appendage to 
every home. 
The common honey bee is not indigenous to our country, 
but was imported at an early period in our history. It has 
never been able to pass over the Iloeky Mountains, but has 
been shipped to the Pacific States within the last twelve years. 
The Indian calls it the white man’s fly, and when bees begin 
to appear, sorrowfully packs his wigwam and bids adieu to 
his familiar hunting grounds and the graves of his forefathers. 
