Communal work is a gathering for mutually accomplishing a task or for communal fundraising. Communal work provided manual labour to others, especially for major projects such as barn raising, "bees" of various kinds (see below), log rolling, and subbotniks. Different words have been used to describe such gatherings. In more modern societies, the word bee has also been used for some time already for other social gatherings without communal work, for example for competitions such as a spelling bee.