308 iHE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



PhtU! hy tV. P. Djndi, F.Z.S., Rigtnl'i Part 



SOLITARY ANT 

 (MALE) (FEMALE) 



2*Jot a true ant J but a burroiuing-'wasp, beHcved 

 to be parasitic in the nests of humble-bees 



and more or less metallic. A photograph of a large and 

 beautiful South American species appears in the Coloured 

 Plate. The largest British bees are the stout-bodied HuMBLE- 

 liEES, or Bumble-bees, which are generally yellow, more or 

 less banded with black, or else black with a red tail. They 

 form a small nest of cells just beneath the surface of the 

 ground in meadows. A common European species, not found 

 in England, is the large black, violet-winged Carpenter-BEE, 

 which makes its nest in a gallery burrowed in a post, where 

 there is a separate compartment for each grub. 



There are only a few species belonging to the TRUE HlVE- 

 BEES found in dilTerent parts of the world. They can always be 

 distinguished from any of the SOLITARY Bees, some of which 



much resemble them, by having a single long, narrow cell, about four times as long as broad, 



running along the front edge of the fore wing. In the solitary bees the corresponding cell 



is much broader and shorter, rarely more than one and a half times as long as broad, and 



only occupying a small portion of the front edge of the wing. 



Hive-bees have always been looked upon with more interest than most other insects, both 



on account of the valuable products of honey and wax which they produce, and because of 



their remarkable habits. They are probably less intelligent than ants, but they are larger ; 



and as all classes of their adult population are winged insects, and have been kept in a 



domesticated or semi-domesticated state for many centuries, they have lent themselves more 



readily to observation. 



The hive-bees live in very large communities, and in a state of nature they make their 



nests in hollow trees or in crevices of rocks, where they build their waxen cells, store their 



honey, and rear their young. There are three classes among them, — the queen-bee, the female 



and the mother of the hive; the male, or drone; and the neuter, or worker, which is really 



an imperfectly developed and usually sterile female. Like other insects, bees pass through 



a metamorphosis, which in their case is of the description called " complete," for the immature 



forms of the bee show no resemblance whatever to the winged insect which will finally be 



perfected. Every bee commences its life in the form of an egg. Each egg is laid by the 



queen-bee in a separate cell, and in a few days the egg hatches into a white footless maggot, 



which is carefully tended by the workers, and fed 



by them with a preparation secreted by the bees, 



which is carefully graduated, not only according 



to the age of the grub, but is differently 



constituted according to the sex and status of 



the bee ; for it is well known that it is in the 



power of the workers to develop a young grub 



which would otherwise become a sterile worker 



into a perfect queen-bee, by placing it in a 



large cell, and rearing it on the same nourishing 



food which is supplied to those grubs which 



are intended to become perfect queens. When 



the grub is full-grown, it spins itself a small 



silken cocoon, and becomes a pupa, or nymph, 



as it is called. The pupa somewhat resembles 



a swathed mummy, for all the external portions 



of the future bee can be seen outlined in the 



hard casing which encloses it. As soon as it 



arrives at maturity, it makes its way out 



through the upper end, when the cell is at 



Phtlo by W. t Dartdc, F.^.i.'j 



HORNET 



iRegint^s Park 



