HARDWICKE'S SCI ENCE-G0SS1 T. 



161 



are situated in its head immediately beneath the 

 compound eyes ; these glands terminate in ducts 

 which open on either side the root of the tongue. 



He seems to have made out most satisfactorily that 

 the function of these special glands is to secrete the 

 so-called royal jelly. 



The possession of this specialised system of glands 

 denotes a higher organisation in bees than in wasps, 

 yet after all the wasp gets his nitrogenous require- 

 ments in a simpler way, namely, by capturing insects, 

 and by robbing the butcher. 



The royal jelly is administered to the young much 

 in the same ways as pigeons exercise when feeding 

 their young. 



Moreover, the queen is fed by her attendants in the 

 same way with the same royal repast. 



How much she requires such highly-stimulating 

 and nourishing food, and what tissue-forming power 

 it possesses, may readily be estimated from the fact, 

 that the queen, during the height of the season, will, 

 under its influence, lay from 2000 to 3000 eggs a day, 

 and from the fact that the sum-total of these eggs 

 amounts to two or three times the weight of their 

 mother. 



As previously mentioned, bees and wasps possess 

 th^ power of altering the sex of their offspring at will 

 — this is accomplished by administering this royal 

 jelly in greater or less proportion to the larva. 



In early spring and summer wasps manufacture (so 

 to speak) only neuters ; in autumn they metamorphose 

 the eggs into fertile females and males for the con- 

 tinuation of the race. 



Now and then both wasps and bees make a slight 

 miscalculation in the quantity of royal jelly to be 

 administered. They give too little to metamorphose 

 the larva into a queen, and too much for an ordinary 

 neuter ; the result is that a partially sterile female is 

 ushered into the world. 



This benighted female persists all her life long in 

 laying eggs which produce males or drones only. 



A case of this kind occurred this year at Madeley, in 

 a hive belonging to Mr. Piercy ; in consequence his 

 hive became almost filled with useless drones. In 

 this emergency, the Rev. G. Baily was called in, and 

 he happily succeeded in getting rid of the nuisance. 



Probably it will be asked by many, how have these 

 curious facts been made out (if facts they be), since 

 bees and wasps have troublesome stings, and hide 

 their nests out of sight ? 



In my youthful days I made an experiment in search 

 of knowledge on the subject. I took a wasp's nest 

 and placed it in a comfortable chamber beneath the 

 ground of my father's garden. 



I made a good roof, and a good entrance to the 

 room ; but it was an experiment of ignorance. The only 

 result was that our house, in the course of a few days, 

 was crowded with an extra supply of wasps, much to 

 my mother's annoyance ; but I did not tell her the 

 reason why. 



On the other hand, M. Reaumur, in the true 

 scientific spirit, took wasp's nests for observation — he 

 was careful in taking nests only recently made, and 

 he was especially careful in including the queen- 

 mother ; he then placed the whole vespiary beneath a 

 glass hive, and was rewarded for trusting in the 

 insect's love of her offspring by seeing her take 

 kindly to her new home.* 



Under such advantageous circumstances he watched 

 the development of the family and the domestic 

 economy of the commonwealth. 



He watched the manufacture of the paper-covering, 

 and by occasionally snipping away a portion of the 

 covering, he saw the cells in the act of being 

 moulded and fashioned before his eyes, and as tier 

 after tier arose, he witnessed the mode of their 

 enlargement, and he witnessed the building of the 

 pillars and columns which fastened them together. 



He saw the mature wasps of all sexes, whose duty 

 it was to remain at home, impartially fed on the flat 

 roof of the comb on the juicy food which their 

 comrades, the working foragers, had just regurgitated 

 for their benefit, while other foster-parents fed the 

 larvre in the cells below. 



The extraordinary tenacity and strength of the cord 

 which fixes the whole vespiary to the summit of the 

 roof of the nest may be estimated by the great weight 

 it has to bear. 



The largest nest I ever assisted in taking had from 

 twelve to fourteen combs, at least a foot in diameter, 

 and the whole was not less in size than the 

 ordinary straw hive of the bee, and, when filled with 

 young wasps, must have weighed many pounds. 



As the wasp is one of the Hymenoptera which 

 only possesses a short tongue, it cannot gather nectar 

 from long-tubed flowers, as bees and bumble-bees 

 do. It feasts chiefly on umbelliferous plants, among 

 which I have observed that it is especially fond of 

 the wild parsnip ; it also feeds and gathers nectar 

 bountifully from the knotted and water figwort,t 

 aided by the corolla in these plants being shallow, 

 and nearly full of honey. 



In early spring the flowers of the rhododendron are 

 especial favourites ; late in autumn swarms of wasps 

 may be seen sipping the scanty nectar, and eating 

 the copious pollen, of the ivy ; the last food ere they 

 die. 



When I was a boy I made a notable and curious 

 discovery as regards the character and conduct of 

 wasps. My brothers and myself were taking one 

 of their nests in the middle of a grass field ; when 

 we had dug out one or two spadefuls of soil the 

 communication with the nest was lost, and while we 



* That wasps are capable of some amount of civilization may 

 be readily admitted when we consider the behaviour of the 

 wasp [Polistes gallica) which Sir J. Lubbock brought from the 

 Pyrenees. It would feed quietly on his hand, and wo^ild 

 return to the bottle in whicft it lived after daily excjrsions. 

 He kept it nine months. 



f Scroj>hularia nodosa and aquatica. 



