0J* THE ECONOMY OF BEES. Q£j 



But if one escape from within, it comes with a very different Not sowhen 

 temper, and appears commissioned to avenge public wrongs, 2 ^jSS 

 and prepared to sacrifice its life in the execution of its orders, fight. 

 I discovered the circumstance, that wasps thus excluded 

 from their nest would neither defend it nor themselves, at a 

 very early period of my life; and 1 profited so often, by the 

 discovery, as a schoolboy, that I am quite certain of the 

 fact 1 state; and I do not entertain any doubt, though f speak 

 from experiments less accurately made, that the actions of 

 bees, under similar circumstances, would be the same r . 



Mr. Hunter conceived bees wax to be an animal substarrce, Mr. Hunter 

 which exuded between the scales of the belly of the insect ; JJ^tngSees 

 but I am strongly disponed to believe, that it is collected from wax an animal 

 plants, and merely deposited between the scales of the belly SU s * nce * 

 of the bee, for the joint purposes of being carried with con- 

 venience, and giving it the temperature necessary for being 

 moulded into combs.: and 1 am led to this conclusion, not 

 only by the circumstance of wax being found in the vegeta- 

 ble world, but also by having often observed bees employed 

 in detaching something from the bases of the leaves of plants 

 with their forceps, which they did not deposit on their thighs, 



* A curious circumstance, relative to wasps, attracted the notice of Abundance of 

 some of my fiends last year, and has net, I believe, been satisfactorily * em *jewasps 

 accounted for A greater number of female wasps were observed in dif- 

 ferent parts of the kingdom, in the spung and early part of the summer 

 of that year, than at almost any former period ; yet scarcely any nests, 

 or labouring wasps, were seen in the following autumn ; the cause of 

 which I believe 1 can explain. Attending to some peach trees in my 

 garden, late in the autumn of the year 1805, on which I had been mak- 

 ing experiments, I noticed, during many successive days, a vast number 

 of female wasps, which appeared to have been attracted there by the 

 shelter and warmth of a south wal 1 ; but I did not observe any males. 

 At length, during a warm gleam in the middle of one of the days, a 

 single male appeared, and selected a female close to me ; and this wfts 

 the only male 1 saw in that season. The male wasp, which is readily 

 distinguishable from the female and labourer, by his long antenna and 

 sinning wings, and by a blacker and more slender body, is rarely seen out This account- 

 of the nest, except in very warm days, like the drone bee; and the nests * or * 

 of wasps, though very abundant in the year 1805, were not formed till 

 remarkably late in the season ; and thence 1 conclude, that the males had 

 not acquired maturity till the weather had ceased to be warm, and that 

 the females, in consequence, retired to their long winter sleep without 

 having had any intercourse with them. 



Vol. XIX— April, 1808. S ' as 



