an oblong form, with its inner surface
clothed with fine hairs, disposed in transverse layers,--by the oblong
shape of its body,--and by the feelers at the sheath of the tongue being
almost obsolete and formed of a single point.

The Hive-bee may be regarded as one of the most perfectly social species
of insects, and one whose economy is regulated by the possession of a
more remarkable degree of instinct than is perhaps possessed by any
other insect. Another peculiarity regarding bees is, that there are not
simply males and females among them, but mules or workers, or female
non-breeders, as they have been termed, which constitute the great mass
of the population of a hive. They are smaller, as regards size, than the
males or the female bees, and it is to them that the internal economy of
the hive is committed, and upon them the whole labour of the community
devolves. Moreover, it is their duty to guard and protect the hive and
the queen, to feed the young, and to kill the drones at the appointed
time.

In a single hive there are sometimes not fewer than thirty thousand of
these individuals. They are distinguished from the breeding females by
having a longer lip, the jaws not notched at the tip, and the sting
straight. The male bees, of which there are several hundreds, sometimes
even two thousand in a full hive, are idle creatures, doing no work.
They are generally termed _drones_, and they are of a more bulky size
than the other bees, and they are not armed with a sting.

Such are the inhabitants of the hive; the chief products of which are
bees-wax and honey. The former is secreted by the worker-bees, by a
peculiar apparatus on the under side of the belly, as occasion requires,
and is employed for constructing the combs in which the family provision
and the young brood are deposited.

Honey is obtained by bees from the _nectaries_ of flowers, which, it is
well known, are constantly secreting a sweet thick fluid. This is sucked
up by the tongue of the insect, and a portion of it is consumed at once
for its support, but the greater part of the supply, although taken into
the stomach of the bee, is again brought up (regurgitated, to use a hard
word), and poured into the cells of the hives for the food of the grubs
and the use of the community through the winter.

[Illustration: QUEEN BEE.]

[Illustration: DRONE.]

The cells into which the honey is poured for store are placed in the
most inaccessible parts of the