392 



SOME REPRESENTATIVE INSECTS 



organization in which the females have become differentiated as 

 queens and workers, and the males as drones, as is almost invari- 

 ably the case in social insects. Thus, in the bumble-bees the 

 females that have mated with the males in the fall survive the 

 winter by hibernation as do the females of Polistes. In the 



spring each of these queen 



bees finds a deserted 

 burrow of some field mouse 

 or similar animal, or ex- 

 cavates one for herself. 

 She then deposits her eggs 

 upon a pasty food mass 

 made of pollen and honey 

 that she has gathered 

 from flowers. She tends 

 the larvae as they grow 

 in the waxen cells she has 

 made, collects more food, 

 and lays more eggs. The 

 larvae pupate in silken 

 cocoons from which they 

 emerge as the modified 

 females that are the 

 workers. These are in- 

 capable of egg production, 

 but they carry on all the 

 other activities of the 

 females. The males are 

 drones, and are useless in 

 the economy of the hive 

 except in mating with 

 the functional females. In the fall the workers and the drones 

 die and a few young queens that have mated, and therefore contain 

 in their seminal receptacles the spermatozoa with which to fertihze 

 their eggs the following season, survive the winter by hibernation 

 and thus continue the species. The bumble-bee's nest may reach 

 six inches in diameter and consists of irregularly arranged cells of 

 wax, some of which contain pollen and a few, honey. 



A colony of honey-bees (Figs. 204 to 206), with its combs filled 

 with honey collected by the workers and stored as food, the 



Fig. 



205. — A swarm of bees clustered on 

 a branch. 



CFrom Farmers 

 Dept. Agr.) 



Bulletin No. 1198, U. S. 



