Notched and ragged wings, instead of gray hairs and wrinkled faces, are the signs of old age in the bee, and indicate that its season of toil will soon be over. They appear to die rather suddenly, and often spend their last days, and sometimes even their last hours, in useful labors. Place yourself before a hive, and see the indefatigable energy of these aged veterans, toiling along with their heavy burdens, side by side with their more youthful compeers, and then say if you can, that _you_ have done work enough, and that you will give yourself up to slothful indulgence, while the ability for useful labor still remains. Let the cheerful hum of their industrious old age inspire you with better resolutions, and teach you how much nobler it is to meet death in the path of duty, striving still, as you "have opportunity," to "do good unto all men." The age which individual members of the community may attain, must not be confounded with that of the colony. Bees have been known to occupy the same domicile for a great number of years. I have seen flourishing colonies which were twenty years old, and the Abbe Della Rocca speaks of some over forty years old! Such cases have led to the erroneous opinion that bees are a long-lived race. But this, as Dr. Evans has observed, is just as wise as if a stranger, contemplating a populous city, and personally unacquainted with its inhabitants, should on paying it a second visit, many years afterwards, and finding it equally populous, imagine that it was peopled by the same individuals, not one of whom might then be living. "Like leaves on trees, the race of bees is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the Spring or Fall supplies, They droop successive, and successive rise." The cocoons spun by the larvæ, are never removed by the bees; they stick so closely to the sides of the cells, that the knowing bee well understands that the labor of removal would cost more than it would be worth. In process of time, the breeding cells become too small for the proper development of the young. In some cases, the bees must take down and reconstruct the old combs, for if they did not, the young issuing from them would always be dwarfs; whereas I once compared with other bees, those of a colony more than fifteen years old, and found no perceptible difference. That they do not always renew the old combs, must be admitted, as the young from some old hives are often considerably below the average size. On this account, it is very desirable to be able to remove the old combs occasionally, that their place may be supplied with new ones.