598 



1XSECTA. 



(CJutlicodoma) miirarla Fabr.. Osmia licorms L., Anf/uyrfiora 

 Fabr., XijlwHpa rtolacra Fabr. Wood-bees construct perpendicular 

 passages in wood, and divide them by transverse walls into cells. 



Bombus Latr. Bumble bee. Body heavy ; hairy like fur. The nests are 

 usually placed in holes under the earth, and include only a small number, about 

 fifty to two hundred, rarely as many as five hundred workers, in addition to the 

 fertilized [female. They do not construct combs, but pile up irregular masses 

 of pollen, in which the eggs are deposited, and which serve as food for the 

 hatching grubs. The latter eat out cellular cavities in the pollen masses and 

 iorm oval cocoons, which are free but irregularly placed by the side of one 

 another. The nest is founded by a single female which has survived the winter. 

 She at first alone has the burden of rearing the brood ; subsequently, however, 

 this is shared by the hatched workers of different size, which themselves 

 lay unfertilized eggs. S. lajtidariiis Fabr., mitscorum 111., terrestris, 111., 

 Ivypnorwm 111. 



Ajris L.. honey-bee. The workers with lateral separated eyes, with one-jointed 

 maxillary palps. The external surface of the hinder tibise is pressed into the 

 form of a pit, and is surrounded by simple marginal setre (basket, fig. 491. K) : 



the inner surface of the tarsus is beset with regular 

 rows of seta? (brush, fig. 491 B, I). The female 

 (queen) with shorter tongue, longer abdomen, with- 

 out brush. The male (drone), with large eyes in 

 contact, broad abdomen, and short mouth parts, 

 without basket and brush. .4. mellijica- L., honey 

 bee, distributed over Europe and Asia as far as 

 Africa. 



The workers build perpendicular combs in hollow 

 trees, or in other protected places ; under the in- 

 fluence of human cultivation, in suitably arranged 

 baskets or hives. The wax used in the construction 

 of the comb is produced in the organism as a result 

 of metabolism (honey being the source), and is 

 exuded in the form of small tablets between the. 

 segments of the abdomen. The combs consist of 

 two layers of horizontal hexagonal cells, the bases of 

 which are formed of three rhomboidal plates. The 

 smaller cells serve lor the reception of provisions 



(honey and pollen) and for the brood of workers, the larger for tin; reception 

 of honey and the drone brood. Outside, at the edge of the comb, there are 

 at definite times a small number of large irregular queen cells, in which the 

 female larva; are brought up. When the cells are filled with honey, or the 

 larvae contained in them have reached the stage of pupae, they are closed up. A 

 small opening at the bottom of the hive serves for entry and exit ; all other 

 clefts and fissures are closed with wax, and no light enters the interior of the 

 nest. In no other Ilymenopteran society is the division of labour so strictly 

 carried out as in that of the bees. There is only one fertilized queen, and she 

 alone lays the eggs (she may lay more than three thousand eggs in one 

 day). The working bees divide amongst themselves the business of collecting 

 honey, preparing wax, and feeding the brood, and the completion of the nest. 

 The drones, which exist only at the swarming time, and then only in pro- 

 portionatcly small numbers (two hundred to three hundred in a society of twenty 



'B 



FIG. 491. a, Hind leg of a 

 worker of Apis melVJlca. 

 JT, basket on the tibia; 

 , enlarged tarsal joint 

 with brush on the under 

 side. i, brush, more 

 strongly magnified. 



