The Colony and its Organization 
43 
While there is usually but one queen in the colony, it some¬ 
times happens that two are found, usually mother and 
daughter at the time of supersedure. Records of this kind 
are not infrequent but usually each observer thinks that his 
observation is unique, v. Buttel-Reepen 1 claims that there 
are usually two brood-nests. He records one case in which 
this was not true and several American beekeepers have 
recorded the same thing. The specialization which normally 
permits but one egg-producing female is not well understood 
nor do we know why a queen usually attempts to kill any 
rivals (except under swarming conditions). Recently, Al¬ 
exander 2 has advocated the use of two queens for rapid up¬ 
building of the colony in the spring and he brought this about 
by a special method of introduction. He records that usually 
but one remains in the fall. 
Workers. 
The larger number of bees in the colony are females whose 
sexual organs are undeveloped and which are structurally 
modified in other ways. These are justly called worker bees. 
These bees feed the growing larvae, clean, guard and venti¬ 
late the hive, build comb, gather nectar, pollen, water and 
propolis and, in fact, do all the work of the hive, except that 
normally they lay no eggs (p. 187). 
The ovaries are small and there is no spermatheca. The 
mandibles (Fig. 70) are not notched as in the queen, the legs 
(Fig. 81) are variously modified, the third pair being modi¬ 
fied for the carrying of pollen. The ventral plates of the 
last four visible segments of the abdomen are modified on 
the anterior edge to form wax glands (Fig. 53) from which 
the wax used in comb building is secreted. The sting (Fig. 
83) is straight and barbed. The antennae have 12 segments. 
The tongue is longer than in the queen or drones. The 
1 v. Buttel-Reepen, H., 1900. Sind die Bienen Reflex-maschinen ? (Eng. 
trans., p. 10.) 
2 Alexander, E. W., 1907. A plurality of queens in a colony, without 
perforated zinc. Gleanings in Bee Culture, XXXV, pp. 1136-1138. 
See also p. 1496 and Vol. XXXVI, p. 1135. 
