BEES 
QUEEN. DRONE. WORKER. 
Bees are 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 propaga- 
ting 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 pro- 
per 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 an- 
other so as to secure perfect unity of action, their collecting 
the most delicious of sweets from the most beautiful objeots 
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 Rocky Mountains, but has 
been shipped to the Pacific States within the last fourteen 
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. 
