VARIETIES OF WASP SOCIETY 



the tropics, the invasion of the common wasp and its allies 

 must have taken place a much longer time ago. 



Finally, the dominance of the queen in a wasp colony is 

 very marked. In her absence the social organisation tends to 

 degenerate. Many workers may start laying and the rule of 

 one egg to the cell may be broken. When the queen is 

 functioning normally she seems somehow to determine the 

 rate of cell-construction, and the length of her life seems to 

 decide how long the colony will last. There are no grounds 

 for thinking that she " gives orders " to the workers, except 

 to the limited extent that she may prevent illegitimate ovi- 

 position, but she seems to provide the central point round 

 which the whole complicated pattern of behaviour revolves. 

 Thus, the simple family character of the social group is more 

 fully preserved in wasps than it is in ants, honey bees or 

 termites. 



75 



