THE SOCIAL INSECTS 



removing liquid that the grubs could not otherwise dispose 

 of conveniently. 



It is clear that in a large flourishing wasps' nest there are 

 many different jobs to be done, and one would like to know 

 whether there is any division of labour amongst the workers. 

 In one sense there evidently is such division, since at any 

 one moment the workers are not all doing the same thing. 

 Some are standing guard over the nest, others are feeding 

 the young, others getting food or paper. The observations 

 of Weyrauch in Germany suggest that an individual may 

 tend to do a particular sort of work for some time, perhaps 

 a day or two, but that there is no rigid division of labour. 

 If some particular task, such as defending the nest, becomes 

 temporarily more important, all will take part in it, and in 

 any case during its life-time one worker will probably do a 

 little of everything. In the honey bee, in which the workers 

 are all very similar to one another in structure, there is a 

 division of labour largely based on the age of the individual, 

 each worker tending to perform different duties as it gets 

 older. In the wasps, the workers are also very similar to one 

 another, but the relation between age and duties has hardly 

 been studied. According to Gaul, the younger wasps work 

 in the nest and do not go out to forage, but from Wey- 

 rauch's records of the relatively rapid changes of occupation, 

 it is not likely that there is an elaborate cycle of duties. 



Towards the end of the life of the colony the workers 

 suddenly start building larger cells. The line between these 

 and the smaller ones may cut sharply across the bottom comb, 

 but any combs added later below this will consist of large 

 cells only. The young queens come exclusively from eggs 

 which have been laid in the large cells. The males develop 



5* 



