The Habits of various Insects. 



4QI 



semi-fluid food. The combs are never used more than once; as soon as the 

 young bees have left them (five to six weeks after the laying of the eggs) they 

 are destroyed and new ones built in their place. 



Once I assisted at a curious contest, which took place between the queen 

 and the worker bees in one of my hives, and which throws some light on the 

 intellectual faculties of these animals. A set of 47 cells had been filled, 8 on a 

 nearly completed comb, 35 on the following, and 4 around the first cell of a new 

 comb. When the queen had laid eggs in all the cells of the two older combs 

 she went several times round their circumference (as she always does in order 

 to ascertain whether she has not forgotten any cell), and then prepared to retreat 

 into the lower part of the breeding room. But as she had overlooked the four 

 cells of the new comb the workers ran impatiently from this part to the queen, 

 pushing her, in an odd manner, with their heads, as they did also other workers 

 they met with. In consequence the queen began again to go around on the 

 two older combs, but as she did not find any cell wanting an egg she tried to 

 descend; but everywhere she was pushed back by the workers. This contest 

 lasted for a rather long while, till at last the queen escaped without having com- 

 pleted her work. Thus the workers knew how to advise the queen that some- 

 thing was as yet to be done, but they knew not how to show her where it had 

 to be done. In the same hive there appeared to be two political parties among 

 the workers, dissenting about the construction of the combs, one destroying what 

 the other had begun to build; but it would require a very long and tedious ex- 

 position to give you the details of the case. 



Our several species of honey-bees differ as much in their mental dispositions 

 as they do in external appearance and size (the smallest species, called Trigona 

 lilliput by my brother, is only about 2*5 mm. long). Some rush furiously out of 

 their nest, whenever an enemy approaches it, attacking and persecuting the 

 offender; others are very tame, and permit close observation off all their work. 

 In one large species I could even observe with a lens the act of their sucking a 

 solution of sugar, which I had given them, and there was no doubt that at least 

 these bees really suck, and do not lap, like dogs or cats, as Milne Ewards, Ger- 

 stacker, and most entomologists think. 



There is one species (Trigona liomdo Sm., named for my brother by Mr. 

 Frederick Smith himself) which never appears to collect honey or pollen from 

 flowers, on which, at least, I have never seen it. It robs other species of their 

 provisions and sometimes takes possession of their nests, killing, or expelling the 

 owners. The hives in my garden have often been invaded, and two of them 

 destroyed, by these robbers, and I have seen in the forest several nests, formerly 

 inhabited by other species, occupied by them. 



Together with my brother at Lippstadt I intended to publish an essay on 

 the natural history of our stingless boney-bees, but it will probably cost some 

 years to give a tolerably complete account of them. 



Itajahy, Santa Catharina, Brazil, April 20. 1874. 



