OUR COMMON INSECTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE HOME OF THE BEES. 



The history of the Honey bee, its wonderful instincts, its 

 elaborate cells and complex economy, have engrossed the atten- 

 tion of the best observers, even from the time of Virgil, who 

 sang of the Ligurian bee. The literature of the art of bee- 

 keeping is already very extensive. Numerous bee journals and 

 manuals of bee-keeping testify to the ihiportance of this art, 

 while able mathematicians have studied the mode of formation 

 of the hexagonal cells,* and physiologists have investigated 

 the intricate problems of the mode of generation and develop- 

 ment of the bee itself. 



In discussing these difficult questions, we must rise from the 

 study of the simple to the complex, remembering that — 



"All nature widens upward. Evermore 

 The simpler essence lower lies : 

 More complex is more perfect — owning more 

 Discourse, more widely wise," 



and not forget to study the humbler allies of the Honey bee. 

 We shall, in observing the habits and homes of the wild bees, 

 gain a clearer insight into tlie mysteries of the hive. 



The great family of bees is divided into social and solitary 

 species. The social kinds live in nests composed of numerous 

 cells in which the young brood are reared. These cells vary in 

 form from those which are quite regularly hexagonal, like those 

 of the Hive bee, to those which are less regularly six-sided, 

 as in the stlngless bee of the tropics (Melipona), until in the 

 Humble bee the cells are isolated and cylindrical in form. 



* The cells are not perfectly hexagonal. See the studies ou the formation 

 of the cells of the bee, by Professor J. Wyman, in the Proceedings of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, 1866; and the author's 

 Guide to the Study of Insects, p 123. 



(17) 



