v SOCIAL LIFE OF ANIMALS 83 



before one of them. The successful new queen soon 

 becomes restless, issues forth in swift nuptial flight, is 

 fertilised by a drone, and returns to her home to begin 

 prolific egg-laying, and perhaps after a time to lead off 

 another swarm. During the busy summer, when food is 

 abundant, the lazy males are tolerated ; but when their 

 function is fulfilled, and when the supplies become scarce, 

 they are ruthlessly put to death. " No sooner does in- 

 come fall below expenditure, than their nursing sisters 

 turn their executioners, usually by dragging them from 

 the hive, biting at the insertion of the wing. The drones, 

 strong for their especial work, are, after all, as tender as 

 they are defenceless, and but little exposure and abstinence 

 is required to terminate their being. So thorough is the 

 war of extermination, that no age is spared ; even drone 

 eggs are devoured, the larvae have their juices sucked and 

 their ' remains ' carried out a fate in which the chrysalids 

 are made to take part, the maxim for the moment being, 

 He that will not work, neither shall he eat." This 

 Lycurgan tragedy over, the equilibrium of the hive is 

 more secure, and the winter comes. 



The social life of hive-bees is marked by the differ- 

 entiation of queens and workers, by the formation of a 

 comb of wax, and by the accumulation of stores of pollen 

 and nectar. It is interesting to find that it is the climax 

 of a series of stages. Thus Prosopis, which lays its eggs 

 in the pith of bramble-stems ; the wood-boring Xylo- 

 pliaga ; and the leaf-cutting Megachile, which lines its 

 burrows with circles cut from rose leaves, are solitary 

 bees, of which it must be noted that the mother-insect 

 dies without ever seeing the brood. In various species 

 of Halictus, however, though the habit is still solitary, 

 the mother watches over the nest and survives to see 

 the brood. The various species of humble- or bumble- 

 bee (Bombus), so familiarly industrious from the spring, 

 when the willows bear their catkins, till the autumn chill 

 benumbs, are halfway to the hive-bees ; for they live in 

 societies of mother, drones, and workers during summer, 

 while the sole surviving queens hibernate in solitude. 

 From the humble-bee, moreover, we gain this hint, that 



