156 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



work at once as though they had been trained to 

 it. Every few days they are joined by later emer- 

 gences — all workers for a time. Later the mother 

 lays eggs which produce males and females. The 

 cells for the second and later batches of eggs are 

 built on the sides of the taller cocoons, so that 

 they can derive warmth from the mother's body 

 as she is imparting it to her first brood. It is 

 to this arrangement that the higgledy-piggledy 

 appearance of the nest at the end of the season 

 is due. 



Later in the season when the mother bee is 

 getting enfeebled the older workers take to laying 

 virgin eggs, but these only produce males. The 

 sexual bees produced by the mother earlier in 

 the season are all much smaller than those produced 

 in early autumn, upon which the continuance of 

 the race depends. For the Humble Bee com- 

 munities all come to an end before winter, and the 

 future of the species depends upon the young 

 fertile females who go into hibernation, and are 

 ready to begin egg-laying in spring. 



These Humble Bees, of which there are many 

 species — seventeen of them natives of our own 

 Islands — differ in their nesting habits, some, as 

 indicated, going underground, whilst a few, known 

 as Carder Bees, form their nests in slight hollows 

 of the surface, covering them with domes of felted 

 moss and grass. These Carders are much less 

 numerous in individuals than the subterranean 

 builders. Smith says that the communities of 



