The Life of the Individual 
127 
the workers, which develop from eggs identical with those 
from which queens develop, live from a few weeks in summer 
to possibly six months over winter in the North. 1 Drones 
usually live not to exceed four months, unless they arc in 
queenless colonies, in which case they are sometimes reported 
to live over winter. Death comes suddenly to the drone at 
the time of mating, seemingly of shock. If a drone is caught 
on the wing during the time of mating and is slightly pressed, 
the male organs arc ejected and the drone instantly dies. 
Obviously this death by shock does not concern us in a 
study of the normal term of life. 2 
The most interesting phases of this subject are the phe¬ 
nomena observed in worker bees. Those bees which emerge 
somewhat before the beginning of a heavy honey-flow, so 
that they begin their field duties when there is heavy work 
in gathering nectar, usually live only about six weeks, but 
if when the outside work begins there is no nectar available, 
the duration of life is much greater. Those workers which 
emerge at the end of the brood-rearing season are the ones 
which must live until the next spring if the colony is to sur¬ 
vive. It is obvious, therefore, that the length of life of the 
workers is influenced to a marked degree by the conditions 
under which they live. Similarly, queens live longer if 
they are called on to lay eggs less abundantly, and it is ob¬ 
served that in the tropics and semi-tropics, queens do not 
live as long as in the North, where the brood-rearing season 
is relatively short. 3 Further evidence of a similar nature is 
afforded by various facts observed in practical beekeeping. 
Some honey-flows seem to deplete the colony more than 
1 The method of determining the length of life of bees is identical with 
that of determining the duties of bees at different ages. 
2 Bumblebee drones do not die at mating time, according to a quota¬ 
tion given by Weismann, without the reference. 
8 It is difficult to draw any conclusions from the length of life of queen 
bees since they are superseded by the workers when they fail in egg-laying. 
Death is often not natural with them. It is interesting to note that al¬ 
though they can continue to form new eggs in the ovaries (in contrast to 
some female insects which lay but one or two lots of eggs) they gradually 
fail in this respect. 
