OF WASHINGTON. 199 
with a sufficient number of well-known facts to give them intelligible con- 
nection. 
The nest contained when captured the queen and a large number of 
workers of various sizes, as well as eggs, and larvae in various stages of 
development. The precise functions of the different-sized workers were 
not evident, but in general the larger ones attended to the mending of 
the grass covering of the nest and to the bringing in of honey, while the 
smaller ones for the most part did the inside "house-work," the wax 
patching, and the nursing, described below. The nursing, indeed, was 
never done, so far as was observed, by a large or even a medium-sized bee. 
The eggs are laid, several together,* in cavities in a mass of wax. This 
is in direct opposition to the statements of Putnam (1. c.), and of various 
English writers consulted by me, they stating that the eggs are laid in 
a mass of pollen, upon which the larvae, when hatched, feed. The sub- 
stance was tested first by the application of 1 eat, when it melted pre- 
cisely like beeswax. It would not dissolve in water, while pollen and an 
artificial mixture of pollen and honey readily did so. A microscopic ex- 
amination of the wax showed, however, that it contained a great number 
of pollen grains ; but this would be expected when it is considered how 
much pollen is used about the nest. The larvae, after hatching, remain 
incased in a shell of wax, and soon become separated by a wall of the same 
substance each from its neighbor. 
Their method of obtaining nourishment instead of by eating away the 
pollen walls, in which they are supposed to be incased, the workers con- 
stantly adding more to the outside is strikingly different. They are fed 
by a mixture of pollen and honey supplied to them by a worker. The op- 
eration will be described later. 
The larvae, when grown, spin a silken cocoon, and at the end of the 
nymphal stage, the duration of which was unfortunately not noted, t emerge 
by gnawing about the apex of the cocoon so as to form a lid. When the 
adults first come out their subsequently yellow hairs are pale, almost white. 
As soon as the bee has left its nymphal quarters the other workers cut 
away about the upper half of the cell and remove the debris. The part 
which is left furnishes a receptacle for the raw honey and pollen as it is 
brought into the nest. 
When returning from the field the bees settled down upon the alighting- 
block at the entrance of their box, when full laden, with a low, abruptly- 
ceasing hum, always distinguishable from that of a bee without honey or 
pollen. The bees went directly, in a most business-like way, to the pots, 
deposited their loads, and went atvay again or busied themselves about the 
nest. If honey-laden, the bee perched herself on the margin of a honey- 
*The writer has observed in B. vagans as few as three and in B. terrt- 
cola as many as twenty. 
f The writer estimates this time, from memory, at from two to three 
weeks. 
