may be as many as 20,000 in one society of honey-bees, and, 
living as they do, all in one house, there must be some sort 
of regulation to maintain peace and harmony; for bees, like 
men, have jealousies, passions, strifes and ambitions which 
need control. So there should be a president, a governor or 
a king for this great population ; and we find in each hive a 
bee larger than the rest, a female which alone has the power 
to lay eggs. She never goes out of the hive to gather honey, 
does no work in the hive, but, on the other hand, is caressed, 
brushed, fed, and in many ways waited upon by the other 
bees. Because of this distinction she is called the Mother- 
bee , or, more commonly, the Queen bee. We shall see that 
she deserves the title of Queen. 
The male bees are few in number, and are despised by 
the general population because they will not work. They are 
all gentlemen of leisure, or lords to the Queen. Because 
they will not work they are called “drones.” We seldom 
see them, because there are none about until May, and soon 
after the new swarms are all settled in their chosen quarters, 
the drones are all killed or driven from home. You have 
sometimes heard a bee fly past you with a sonorous, buzzing 
sound; this is a drone. In size it is much larger than the 
worker bees, even larger than the Queen. It is quite hairy 
and is not provided with a sting. 
The great majority of the bee population is of “workers. 
They gather honey, pollen and propolis and secrete wax; 
they build the combs, nurse the young, guard the entrance 
to the hive, wait upon the Queen, fight the battles with 
intruders, and remove the dead that would pollute their 
castle. We recognize among them the architects, the ma¬ 
sons, the harvesters, the nurses, sentinels, servants to the 
Queen, etc. These' workers are also termed neuters , being 
females without the ability to deposit eggs. They are all 
provided at the posterior end of the body with concealed 
weapons, the sting, with which they guard their interests. 
The drones do not have a sting, but the Queen has a very 
powerful sting, which she never uses except against a rival 
Queen. 
The working tools of the bee are its mouth and legs. 
The mouth is a long proboscis, very different from that of 
the fly which we have seen. It has a pair of stiff, pin-like 
3 
