Upon the workers, which are undeveloped females, devolves all the labor of gathering honey, pollen, propolis, and bringing water, secreting wax, building combs, stopping up crevices in the hive, nursing the brood, and defending the hives. To enable them to do all this they are furnished with highly specialized organs. These will be more fully referred to in connection with the description of the products gathered and prepared by the workers. [Illustration: Fig. 6.--A, Head of queen, magnified ten times, showing smaller compound eyes at sides, and three ocelli on vertex of head; _n_, jaw notch. B, head of drone, magnified ten times, showing larger compound eyes at sides, with three ocelli between; _n_, jaw notch. (From Cheshire.)] The drones, aside from contributing somewhat to the general warmth of the hive necessary to the development of the brood, seem to have no other office but that connected with reproduction. In the wild state colonies of bees are widely separated, being located wherever the swarms chance to have found hollow trees or rock cavities, hence the production of many drones has been provided for, so young queens flying out to mate will not run too many risks from bird and insect enemies, storms, etc. Mating in the hive would result in too continuous in-and-in breeding, producing loss of vigor. As we find it arranged, the most vigorous are the most likely to reproduce their species. At the time of the queen's mating there are in the hive neither eggs nor young larvæ from which to rear another queen; thus, should she be lost, no more fertilized eggs would be deposited, and the old workers gradually dying off without being replaced by young ones, the colony would become extinct in the course of a few months at most, or meet a speedier fate through intruders, such as wax-moth larvæ, robber bees, wasps, etc., which its weakness would prevent its repelling longer; or cold is very likely to finish such a decimated colony, especially as the bees, because queenless, are uneasy and do not cluster compactly. The loss of queens while flying out to mate is evidently one of the provisions in nature to prevent bees from too great multiplication, for were there no such checks they would soon become a pest in the land. On the other hand, the risk to the queen is not uselessly increased, for she mates but once during her life. [Illustration: Fig. 7.--Modifications of the legs of different bees: A, _Apis_: _a_, wax pincer and outer view of hind leg; _b_, inner aspect of wax pincer and leg; _c_, compound hairs holding grains of pollen; _d_, anterior leg, showing antenna cleaner; _e_, spur on tibia of middle leg. B, _Melipona:_ _f_, peculiar group of spines at apex of tibia of hind leg; _g_, inner aspect of wax pincer and first joint of tarsus. C, _Bombus_: _h_, wax pincer; _i_, inner view of same and first joint of tarsus--all enlarged. (From Insect Life.)] BEE PRODUCTS AND ORGANS USED IN THEIR PREPARATION.