Natural history of animals; . llecting honey. The females have either a sting ora piercer for laying their eggs. They surpass all otherInsects in the number and variety of their word Hymenopter means membrane-winged. Bees. Bees have a hairy body, and their lower lip is length-ened into a sort of proboscis, which is jointed and can 144 ARTHROPODS : INSECTS. be folded under the head; the first joint of the hindlegs is often very large, and fitted for collecting andcarrying the pollen of flowers. The Hive or Honey Bee is originally from Asia, buthas now spread over Europe and Americ
Natural history of animals; . llecting honey. The females have either a sting ora piercer for laying their eggs. They surpass all otherInsects in the number and variety of their word Hymenopter means membrane-winged. Bees. Bees have a hairy body, and their lower lip is length-ened into a sort of proboscis, which is jointed and can 144 ARTHROPODS : INSECTS. be folded under the head; the first joint of the hindlegs is often very large, and fitted for collecting andcarrying the pollen of flowers. The Hive or Honey Bee is originally from Asia, buthas now spread over Europe and America. It is seenalmost everywhere in hives, and it is also quite com,mon in a wild state, and often far from human dwell-ings. In a wild state, Bees of this kind have thenhome in hollow trees and in clefts of rocks. In everynest or hive there are three kinds, a female or queen,males or drones, and workers. In a well-stocked hivethere are two thousand males, fifty thousand workers,but only one queen. The workers are the smallest;. Fig. 254.—Queen. Fig. 255. — Worker. Fig. 256. — Drone. Hive Bee. they fly over the surrounding country and collect allthe materials to form the structure called the comb;they build the cells and store them with honey; theyfeed and protect the young; they wait upon thequeen ; they do all the work of the hive. The malesor drones have a thicker body, and no sting; they per-form no labor, but are supported by the workers. Thequeen is much larger than the others, has a sting, andis the sole mistress of the hive. She lays all the eggs,and seldom goes out except to lead a swarm. Thehoneycomb is one of the most interesting of insect HYMENOPTERA: BEES. 145 structures, and is arranged in the hive in the mostregular manner. The cells are six-sided, and are builtin just the shape to save all the room, to be thestrongest, to contain the greatest amount of honey,and to require the least amount of wax in their con-struction. There are certain cells in which the q
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1895
