روز دوم

QUEENS, WORKERS, DRONES

Each colony of honeybees consists of three classes:

a) the queen who is a prolific layer of eggs;

b) the worker who is the bulwark of the colony;

and c) the sedentary drone whose only function is to mate with a young queen.

The queen lays the eggs that hatch into thousands of female workers; some queens live as long as five years and lay up to one million eggs.

The frugal worker builds and maintains the nest, collects and stores the honey, and is the antithesis of the lazy drone, or male honeybee, who does not work and has no sting.

When the drone is no longer needed, the workers, in effect, liquidate him by letting him starve to death. It’s a cruel, cruel world!