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During the greater part of the year the population of our hives 
is composed exclusively of two sorts of individuals—the female, or 
mother bee, called also the queen bee; and the working bees, or 
neuters, which are, properly speaking, females incompletely deve- 
loped. A third kind of individuals, the males, called also drones, 
are generally not met with except from May to July. 
The working bees are the people, the crowd, the servum pecus, 
the living force, the bee community. They are 
recognised by their small size, reddish brown 
colour, and, above all, by the palettes and brushes 
with which the hind-legs are furnished. 
The three pairs of legs which are inserted in its 4... 399,-working Bee 
(Apis mellifica). 

| thorax are its tools. The two hind-legs are 
|longer than the four front legs, and present on the exterior a 
| triangular depression, resembling a padette, which is surrounded 
| by stiff hairs, forming, as it were, the borders of a sort of basket, 
: in which the insect deposits the pollen of flowers. The broadest 
| part of the leg articulates with the tarsus, which is of a square 
| form, smooth on the exterior, and having hairs on its interior 

: 
| 

surface, which has caused it to be named the brush. The joint 
is used for gathering the pollen; it folds back on the leg 
(Fig. 310), and forms with it a sort of small pair of pincers; and, | 
finally, the leg is terminated by five smaller articulations, the last 

Fig. 310.—Leg of a Bee (magnified.) Fig. 311.—Trunk of a Bee (magnified). 
i 
