The following passage from Dzierzon describes in a popular way the round of the bees' concerns as they vary with the seasons: "In spring, when all Nature has awakened to a new life, the activity of the hive is especially directed to the increasing of the stock, the laying of eggs; at first, indeed, none but worker eggs are laid, and at the outset only a few hundred cells in a day, but afterwards thousands, as every hive seeks in the first place to make its own continuance secure. When gradually the number of bees has through the daily augmentation become perceptibly increased, when the pastures have more fully unfolded themselves, and the warmth in the hive has reached a higher degree, then, in the confidence of strength and of a sort of maturity, and having regard to the remoter object of increase through connubial relations, drone brood is also laid. Finally, although not in every case, in greater or less number queen cells are prepared. As soon as one or other of these is sealed over, the old queen feels no longer safe in the hive, and leaves it on a fine day at noon with the so-called 'fore-swarm.'... In most years and most districts the bee store has passed its climax and entered upon its decline after the swarming period. The activity of the bees now takes another direction. In order to leave over as much honey as possible for the provisionless season that stands before them, a system of saving is now pursued. To compensate for the unavoidable loss of population from the journeys abroad, a certain quantity of worker brood is still continually set on, but to a limited extent, while the breeding of drones is not only given up, but the already deposited drone brood is usually thrown out, and the drones themselves, as no longer of any use, are expelled from the hive. Comb-building too, which the bees so eagerly carried on in the spring, now rests entirely, as it would consume honey, and at the first autumn gathering the bees in fact fill all cells to hand with honey, though previously these may for the most part have served for brood-rearing. Their activity is now bent to securing their future position by accumulating the largest possible store of honey, and preserving themselves against draughts and cold by stopping up the holes in their dwelling with propolis, and narrowing the too wide flight-holes; and these cares generally occupy them so long as the temperature is of such a degree that they can still make their flights, which is up to about 13 degrees Réaumur [say 60 Fahr.].... When there is nothing more to gather, the bees, in order to save strength as well as honey, fly out no longer, even on the finest days, but preserve themselves in complete repose, and only undertake, after several days, an occasional sport before the hive on some warm noonday, so as to cleanse themselves once more before the winter."
Dr. Evans addresses and describes the worker bee in two passages of such real beauty that we cannot refrain from giving them a place here:—
"Ye light-winged labourers! hail the auspicious sign,
When the twin stars in rival splendour shine!
Cheered by their beams, your quickening numbers swell,
And pant your nations in the crowded cell.
Blithe Maia calls, and bids her jocund train
Breathe the warm gale, or softly falling rain;
Inhaled at every pore, the dewy flood
Spreads the young leaf, and wakes the sleeping bud.