152 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



filled their honey-bags, each goes back to her 

 hibernaculum to sleep again until May. Then 

 she looks about for a deserted mouse-nest or other 

 su table retreat, and lays the foundations of her 

 colony that is to be. This may be either on the 

 surface protected by grass, or underground at the 

 end of a tunnel — often a yard long. Different 

 species have their own special tastes in this matter. 

 The Humble Bees are not nearly so eminent as 

 wax-workers as are their cousins of the hive, for 

 they build no proper combs. They produce little 

 wax, and that exudes from under the rings on the 

 back, not from the under surface as in the Honey 

 Bee. The wax, too, is brown in colour, and much 

 softer than that of the Honey Bee. 



It is the custom to speak of the fertile female 

 Humble Bee as a queen just as one speaks of her 

 equivalent in the hive ; but there is a great differ- 

 ence between them. The queen bee is a mere 

 layer of unlimited eggs : she is too regal to be 

 domestic. We prefer to speak of the founder of 

 the Humble Bee colony by the higher title of mother 

 bee. She is a real mother with the maternal 

 instincts highly developed. Unaided, she lays the 

 foundations of the family, incubates her eggs, 

 nestles and feeds her brood, and when she has 

 reared a bevy of infertile daughters to help her 

 she still takes part in all this work so long as her 

 physical powers allow her to do so. 



Having selected a suitable site, she sets to work 

 to prepare the nest. If it is an abandoned nest 



