THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE AND THE BEEHIVE
receive any care or help from its mother. In the bees named the male may be smaller than the female and may not be differentiated into a lazy, idle drone.
In the next stage of progress we have a small colony, which inhabits a nest that has a common entrance, marked by an arrow in Fig. 17. In this stage the cells may be side by side, as in Fig. 11, or end to end, as in Fig. 18. In Fig. 17 the colony is surrounded by a specially protected case, such as we find in more complicated hives of bees and wasps. Finally, in Fig. 19, we find a number of cells side by side, which by pressure may become six-sided. Most primitive bees collect more pollen than honey and secrete no wax. Some bees make cells of leaves or of a substance that they secrete, which becomes papery; some carve cells out of wood; some cover their cells with a dome-like layer of mortar; and in many of these primitive nests the larvae spend months and months before hatching out.
When we reach the social bees—that is, the bees that live together in societies—we find that the most primitive are the mosquito-bees; but whether their communities are the product of a single queen or whether there is more than one egg-producer in their midst is not clear. Here we find, for the first time, special cells or collections of cells set apart for storing honey and other special cells set apart for storing pollen; and here, for the first time, we find wax, of which a comb is built up. This wax is a special secretion of the bee's body. Here again we find that the colonies have separated into queen, or queens; working bees, or females that do not lay eggs; and drones, or males. The fertile and unfertile females are reared on a similar diet. The larva is always sealed up, and once the egg is laid the young are deprived of a mother's care. And here again the drone takes part in the common activities of the hive.
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