THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE AND THE BEEHIVE
The cocoons for future queens are larger and may be readily recognized. But at present there is no evidence that the queen larva is fed on a special diet. Royalty seems to be inherent in the egg and not induced by special feeding. Unlike the useless and swaggering drone of the honey-bee the male bumble-bee leaves the hive and finds flowers for itself. It is no charge on the resources of the community. Several scores of males and queens are produced, and when hatched out they also leave the hive, are fertilized, and go into winter quarters. The queen ages rapidly; her hair drops off and she gradually ceases to lay eggs. As the new queens grow up on the rich and ample store of food provided in the hive the workers become listless. Flowers are becoming scarce, and one by one the bees grow torpid and drop asleep, and from this sleep there is no awakening.
The bumble-bee is certainly more human and less exasperating than the honey-bee. It has none of its monotonous perfection of organization. The queen has something of a mother in her. She is not reduced to a mere egg-laying apparatus, which lays eggs with the regularity and inevitableness of a recurring decimal. The bumble-bee queen broods over her young and nurses them with “a mother's tender care.” The workers work as hard as do the honey-bees, but they are less self-conscious and less self-satisfied, and the drones at any rate have the grace to provide for themselves during their brief life. One has a feeling that one might appeal to the better instincts of a bumble-bee, but that it would be perfectly useless to make such an appeal to a honey-bee.
Now let us summarize the results of the research we have made to discover the steps in the evolution of the honey-bee, with its wonderful social system. The most primitive bee makes a small cell or nest in the ground (Fig. 16), packs
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