When ready to emerge from the cell, the young bee nibbles round the lid of its abode, and bursting its cocoon along the back, it crawls forth in its imago or perfect condition. Forthwith the busy nurses clean it from any remains of its silken covering; brush its legs and antennæ; pull its wings and fuss about it, as if to urge it to action and to arouse it to a due sense of its newly acquired powers. Speedily awakened to its responsibilities, the young bee assumes, as its earliest duties, the tending of the brood-cells, the feeding of the larvæ, and the various offices so recently performed for itself by its slightly older sisters. Then, as strength increases, the wings are tried in flight; the locality of its home is reconnoitred, and in two or three days after its emergence into its complete condition it issues forth on journeys, nearer or more remote, in search of stores for the perpetually recurring wants of the succession of children continually being reared in the hive. Each complete community of bees consists of three classes; first, the queen, who is the parent of all the offspring; second, the drones, or males; and third, the workers, which are really undeveloped females. CHAPTER III. THE QUEEN-BEE Early Errors as to Sex--The "Mother Bee"--Distinguishing Characteristics--Functions--Attentions paid her--Effects of Loss; how Repaired by Bees--Enmity to Rivals--Length of Life--Egg-laying. One of the earliest facts ascertained in the study of bees was that there existed in each colony one individual differing considerably from all the rest in appearance and in functions. Early observers, it is true, mistook even the sex of the one so distinguished. Vergil says: "Et circa regem atque ipsa ad prætoria densæ Miscentur." And, again, "Rege incolumi mens omnibus una est." Shakespeare, in the passage quoted in a previous chapter, talks of "a king," and other writers were equally ignorant of the true state of the case. The headship of the hive is, in fact, held by a solitary female, to whom the name of "queen" has been given, both on account of the respect she receives, and the controlling influence she appears to exercise over the other inmates of her domain. The Germans, on perfectly safe grounds, call her "the mother-bee"; and it is, doubtless, owing to the all-important circumstance of the continued existence of the race depending upon her, that she is the object of such intense affection, attention, and devotion. This is corroborated by the circumstance that it is only after she has been fertilised, and begins to lay, that she is much honoured. As princess merely, not the slightest respect is paid to her. She is not even fed by the workers, but has to help herself, and in doing so must scramble over the busy crowd in her way, not one of whom will trouble to move out of her path.