198 
THE DICTIONARY OF GARDENING, 
Wasps—continued. 
to insure their destruction. The Wasps do not work at 
night, hence that time should be chosen for operations 
against them. Nests in holes may be destroyed by means 
of squibs of mealed gunpowder and sulphur. One of these 
should be pushed through a piece of turf about a foot 
square, and two or three inches thick; the squib should 
be lighted, and put into the Wasps’ burrow, and the turf 
closely pressed down to keep in the smoke. Wet mud 
plastered round the turf helps in this object; and some of 
the mud should be placed over the hole when the squib 
is driven out by the final explosion. A more difficult 
method is to flood the nest with hot water. Tree Wasps’ 
nests can best be destroyed by placing a pail of water 
underneath at night, and cutting the support of the nest, 
so as to allow the nest and its occupants to fall into 
the water. The pail should have a lid, in case any of the 
Wasps should climb out of the water. Such nests may 
also be smoked with sulphur, but with less certain 
results, 
In the article on the Honey Bee (Apis mellifica), 
the promise was made that the habits of that insect 
should be treated of in connection with those of Wasps, 
with which the former insect agrees in many particulars. 
Some of the leading features of agreement and of difference 
between them are, therefore, here briefly indicated. 
Like the social Wasps, the honey bees live in large 
societies, including workers (or neuters), females (or 
queens), and males (or drones), and form their nests in 
holes when in the wild state. Bees in domestication live 
in hives; but not infrequently a swarm, on leaving the 
parent hive, will select a hole for themselves, from which 
it is often very difficult to dislodge them. But though 
Bees agree with Wasps in these respects, they differ 
from them in many important particulars, and to these 
points of difference attention must now be given. 
Bees form new nests in a different way from Wasps. 
The females, or queen bees, do not themselves work 
at the nests; nor do they rear the young grubs or feed 
" them, as is done by the female Wasps in spring. The 
only duty of the queen bees is to lay eggs, which are 
. at once taken care of by the workers; and the latter 
alone nurse the grubs, and look after the pupæ. The 
queens leave the nests to pair; and after they have 
paired. they return very soon, and never again leave 
the hives, except in swarming, when one queen goes 
with each new colony. At all other times they remain 
inside, surrounded by a multitude of workers, which 
feed their queen, and follow her as she deposits her 
eggs in the cells prepared for them. Each new nest of 
honey bees is thus not the work of a single female, 
but is formed by a colony or swarm from some older 
nest, the bees in which have become too numerous to 
remain at home with advantage to the commonwealth. 
Each swarm consists of a queen and a number of workers. 
Among Wasps there is, comparatively, little difference 
between workers, females, or males; but among honey 
Worker. 
Queen. 
Fig. 215. HONEY BEES, 
bees the differences are evident. Fi . 215 show: 
they differ in size and form of body; a pes ee 
eyes of the male are so large as to meet on the top 
Wasps— continued. ; 
of the head; while in the females and neuters the eyes 
are entirely lateral. The males, or drones, take no part 
in the work of the hive. They are produced from eggs 
laid usually in April or May, and assume their per- 
fect condition in summer. They fly during the warmest 
part of the day, and pair with the newly-emerged queens 
during flight. If the impregnation of a queen is retarded 
till twenty-eight days after hatching, she lays only male 
eggs. In hives where the queen is laying eggs from which 
workers can be reared (e, if impregnation has not been 
long delayed after she reached maturity), it has been 
observed that the workers, towards the beginning of 
autumn, attack the drones, and kill them by stinging them. 
Where the queen is capable of laying only male eggs, and 
also when the queen has died, or has been removed from 
the hive, the males are not, killed till a fertile queen 
has been secured. There is only one queen bee in each 
hive; but if she is lost, the workers proceed to rear others 
from worker-larve, by enlarging their cells and supplying 
them with abundance of food. This treatment causes the 
earlier stages to be passed through in a shorter time, and 
also produces a marked result in modifying the bodily 
structure—the bees produced being true females, with all 
the physical peculiarities that distinguish the latter from. 
the workers. When it is necessary to replace a queen, 
there are usually from twelve to twenty larve reared for 
the purpose. As soon as the first queen that reaches 
maturity is able, she goes round the cells containing the 
others, still in the state of pupz, and gnaws a hole in each 
cell. If the cell contains a queen ready to emerge, the 
latter is stung by her older rival. The workers pull the 
pupa or dead bodies of the queens from the cells, and 
remove them. Should two queens emerge at the same 
time, it has been observed that one kills the other. So, 
also, when a stranger queen is introduced into a nest, she 
and the rightful queen fight till one is killed. 
At the periods of swarming, the workers prevent the 
slaughter of as many young queens as are required for 
the nest and the swarms. The old queen leads off the 
first swarm; and the young females that are to go with 
new swarms are not permitted to emerge from their cells . 
till the swarms are ready to depart. Thus fatal con- 
tests are prevented among them. 
The workers differ from the queens as follows: They 
are smaller ; the jaws, or mandibles, are more prominent ; 
the maxille and tongue are longer, and the upper lip 
and antenne are black (in the queens the upper lip is 
fulvous, and the antenne are pitchy-brown); the legs 
are black, with the tarsi brownish; the basal joints of 
the tarsi, and the tibiæ of the hinder legs, are broader, and 
hollowed externally, and bear stiff hairs on the sides 
and across them, so placed as to form a receptacle in 
which to carry the pollen, or “‘bee-bread,” collected from 
flowers for the nourishment of the bees and of the larvæ; 
the abdomen is broader and less pointed, and the three 
middle segments bear a small wax-pocket on each side 
near the base. These differences are very considerable; 
yet the facts that the larve of workers can be made by 
special treatment to produce queens, and that the workers 
possess (functionless) representatives of ovaries, § ow 
that they are indeed females in which the reproductive 
organs have remained undeveloped, and which are fitte 
to perform special duties for the good of the community: 
The workers do all the work of the hive: they buil 
the cells, collect the honey, pollen, and a resinous SU) 
stance known as “propolis,” and feed and attend to the 
young. These operations are so varied that they ar? 
divided between two classes of workers, of which on? 
prepares the wax, and the other attends more especia d 
to building it into cells, collecting the food, and rearing 
the young. 
The makers of wax eat some sugar or honey; and à 
number of them cling together, in a cluster of festoon® 
