sponge, which is used to collect the honey from the calyx of the flower.

The antennæ, which are placed on the front of the head between the eyes, are composed of several joints. They are very sensitive, and help the bees to recognize each other when the vibration of their wings is not heard.

The eyes of the bee are composed of a number of lenses, the two in front being larger than the others. The bee is very long-sighted, and darts like an arrow on anything hostile to the colony.

The thorax, or chest, is that part of the body to which the legs and wings are attached. The legs are six in number; the two hindmost having, at the second joint, near the body, a small cavity lined with hairs, called the pollenbasket, used to collect the pollen, which the bee brings to the hive in the shape of small pellets or balls of different colours.

There are four wings, two pairs of unequal size. The two wings of each pair separately being closely linked together give the bee her great power to guide herself in flight.

The abdomen is composed of rings, in the form of scales, which lie one over the other,

overlapping from the chest or thorax to the extremity of the body. It consists of the honeybag, or first stomach, containing the honey to be stored in the hive; of the second, or true stomach; and, thirdly, of the intestines, terminating in the sting, from which, in an instant of irritation, the bee darts forth a tiny drop of

poison. It is this poison which causes the pain and swelling when stung.

A hive in good condition will contain, in the month of May, three sorts of bees: the mother

of the colony, or the queen; the male, or drone; and the worker bee, who makes the comb and supplies all the wants of the colony.

The comb is the name given to the construction in wax of hexagonal cells of different sizes, made by the bees, and serving, as the case may be, either for bringing up the brood or storing the honey. These combs contain three kinds of cells: royal cells, in which the queens are reared, E F G; drone cells, C D; and worker cells, A B. The cell in the plate, in which a queen has been reared, E, is shown as partly demolished by the bees. F and G are cells which still contain a queen. (See figure on preceding page.)

THE MOTHER, OR QUEEN BEE.

The mother of the colony, or queen, is less thick in build than the drone, but longer than either the drone or worker bee. Her normal business is to lay eggs in the cells. These eggs, at the end of twenty-one days, after having passed through several transformations, produce worker bees.

The queen seldom quits the hive. If, however, the weather permits, she leaves it on

the second day from the date on which she is hatched, and it is then that she is fertilized. I have seen some queens quit the hive on the third day; on the fifth they have laid eggs in the cells of the worker bees, which in due course have come to perfection.

If in their first exits the queens are not fertilized, they go out again; and I have seen them leave the hive four times in one hour, and return without having been fertilized.

If there are several queens in a hive, resulting from the joining of two colonies, or by a second queen being hatched, there ensues a pitched battle, in which one alone remains mistress, and that by the death of her rivals; or, if it be at swarming time, one of them, and always the oldest, quits the hive, taking with her the greater portion of the bees in the hive, and forming what is called a natural swarm.

The egg which produces a queen is of precisely the same nature as the others. This fact can be proved with the greatest ease, by making artificial swarms, either by division or by displacing. The egg which has been placed in a worker-cell is not always, as has been stated by some, moved into a royal cell; but the bees

construct a special cell round it, in the shape of an acorn, either beneath or on the sides of the comb. They only complete this cell in proportion as the larva is developed, and only seal it up when the larva is about to become a queen, by passing through the state of chrysalis or nymph. From the beginning of the work until the hatching of the queen eleven to fifteen days may elapse, depending on whether the queen is produced from a newly deposited egg, or from one which has been deposited two, three, or four days; in the latter case the egg will have passed already into the condition of larva.

The difference between the queen and the worker consists in the fact that, although of the same sex, the large size of her cell and the difference of her food cause her to come to perfection as a queen in sixteen days, whereas worker bees take twenty-one days to arrive at their imperfect state of development.

We say imperfect as to sex, for workers do at times lay eggs, when left without a queen; but these eggs only produce drones, because, owing to their construction, the workers cannot be fertilized.

D