The gathering of food from long distances, the details of wax-making and comb-building, of honey-making (for the nectar of flowers is made into honey by an interesting process), the storing of food, how the community protects itself from starvation when winter sets in or food is scarce by killing the useless drones and the immature bees in egg and larval stage, and many other phenomena of the life of the bee community present good opportunities for careful observation and field study. Although the community is a persistent or continuous one, the individuals do not live long, the workers hatched in the spring usually not more than two or three months, and those hatched in the fall not more than six or eight months. But new ones are hatching while the old ones are dying and the community as a whole always persists. A queen may live several years, perhaps as many as five. She lays about one million eggs a year. There are more than two thousand known species of ants (fig. 84), all of which live in communities and show a truly communal life. The ant workers are specially distinguished in structure from the males and females by being wingless, and in numerous species there are two sizes or kinds of workers known as worker majors and worker minors. The life-history and communal habits of ants are not so thoroughly known as are those of the honey-bee, but they show even more remarkable specializations. The ant nest or formicary is with most species an elaborate system of underground galleries and chambers, special rooms being used exclusively for certain special purposes, as nurse-rooms, food-storage rooms, etc. The food of ants comprises many animal and vegetable substances, but the favorite food with many species is the "honey-dew" secreted by the plant-lice (Aphididæ) and scale insects (Coccidæ). To obtain this food an ant strokes one of the aphids with its antennæ, when the fluid is excreted by the insect and drunk by the ant. In order to have a certain supply of this food some species of ants care for and defend these defenseless aphids, which have been called the "cattle" of the ants. In some cases they are even taken into the ants' nests and food provided for them. "In the Mississippi Valley a certain kind of plant-louse lives on the roots of corn. Its eggs are deposited in the ground in the autumn and hatch the following spring before the corn is planted. Now the common little brown ant (_Lasius flavus_) lives abundantly in the cornfields, and is especially fond of the honey secreted by the corn-root louse. So when the plant-lice hatch in the spring before there are corn-roots for them to feed on, the little brown ants with great solicitude carefully place the plant-lice on the roots of a certain kind of knot-weed which grows in the field and protect them until the corn germinates. Then the ants remove the plant-lice to the roots of the corn, their favorite food-plant. In the arid lands of New Mexico and Arizona the