204 
THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
disperse and to make arrangements in their new home. 
A number (perhaps about two thousand) of large, 
lumbering bees of a darker colour than the rest, will, 
it is true, wander aimlessly about the hive, and wait 
for the others to feed them and house them ; but these 
are the drones, or male bees (3, Fig. 58), who never 
do any work except during one or two days in their 
whole lives. But the smaller working bees (i, Fig. 58) 
begin to be busy at once. Some fly off in search of 
FIG. 58. i. Worker bee. 2. Queen-bee. 3. Drone or male bee. 
honey. Others walk carefully all round the inside of 
the hive to see if there are any cracks in it; and if 
there are, they go off to the horse-chestnut trees, 
poplars, hollyhocks, or other plants which have sticky 
buds, and gather a kind of gum called " propolis," 
with which they cement the cracks and make them 
air-tight. Others again, cluster round one bee (2, Fig. 
58) blacker than the rest and having a longer body 
