Recent researches of Termites and Honey-bees. 



is the existence of two forms of sexual individuals, in some (if not in all) of the 

 species. Besides the winged males and females, which are produced in vast 

 numbers, and which, leaving the termitary in large swarms, may intercross with 

 those produced in other communities, there are wingless males and females, which 

 never leave the termitary where they are born, and which replace the winged 

 males or females, whenever a community does not find in due time a true king 

 or queen. Once I found a king (of a species of Eutermes) living in company 

 with as many as thirty-one such complemental females, as they may be called, 

 instead of with a single legitimate queen. Termites would, no doubt, save an 

 extraordinary amount of labour if, instead of raising annually myriads of winged 

 males and females, almost all of which (helpless creatures as they are) perish in 

 the time of swarming without being able to find an new home, they raised so- 

 lely a few wingless males and females, which, free from danger, might remain 

 in their native termitary; and he who does not admit the paramount importance 

 of intercrossing, must of course wonder why this latter manner of reproduction 

 (by wingless individuals) has not long since taken the place through natural 

 selection of the production of winged males and females. But the wingless indi- 

 viduals would of course have to pair always w T ith their near relatives, whilst by 

 the swarming of the winged Termites a chance is given to them for the inter- 

 crossing of individuals not nearly related. I sent to Germany, about a year ago, 

 a paper on this subject, but do not know whether it has yet been published. 



"From Termites I have lately turned my attention to a still more interesting 

 group of social insects, viz., our stingless honey-bees (Melipona and Trigona). 

 Though a high authority in this matter, Mr. Frederick Smith, has lately affirmed, 

 that 'we have now acquired almost a complete history of their economy,' I still 

 believe, that almost all remains to be done in this respect. I think that even 

 their affinities are not yet well established, and that they are by no means inter- 

 mediate between hive- and humble-bees, nor so nearly allied tho them, as is 

 now generally admitted. Wasps and hive-bees have no doubt independently 

 acquired their social habits, as well as the habit of constructing combs of hexa- 

 gonal cells, and so, I think, has Melipona. The genera Apis and Melipona may 

 even have separated from a common progenitor, before wax was used in the con- 

 struction of the cells; for in hive-bees, as is well known, wax is secreted on the 

 ventral side: in Melipona on the contrary, as I have seen, on the dorsal side of 

 the abdomen; now it is not probable, that the secretion of wax, when once 

 established, should have migrated from the ventral to the dorsal side, or vice versa. 



"The queen of the hive-bee fixes her eggs on the bottom of the empty 

 cells; the larvae are fed by the labourers at first with semi-digested food, and 

 afterwards with a mixture of pollen and honey, and only when the larvae are 

 full grown, the cells are closed. The Meliponae and Trigonae, on the contrary, 

 fill the cells with semidigested food before the eggs are laid, and they shut the 

 cells immediately, after the queen has dropped an egg on the food. With hive- 

 bees the royal cells, in which the future queens have to be raised, differ in 

 their direction from the other cells; this is not the case with Melipona and 

 Trigona, where all the cells are vertical' with their orifices turned upward, forming 

 horizontal (or rarely spirally ascending) combs. You know that honey is stored 



