41 



BENEFICIAL AND INJURIOUS INSECTS. 

 {Chiefly of the Order llymenoptera.) 



BY JOSEPH WILLIAMS, LONDON, ONT. 



1. The Common Bee ( Apis mellifica.) 



2. The Bee-moth or Wax-worm (Galkrea cereana) Fabr. 



3. The Bee-killer (Triipanea apivoni) Fitch. 



4. The Ring-legged Pinipla (rimiiln anmdij»;s) Br. 



5. The Pigeon Tremex {Trcmer columba) Linn. 



6. The Sigalphus Circulio Parasite {Sic/alphuscurculionis) Fitch. 



7. The Porizon Curculio Parasite {Porizon conotracheli) Riley. 



To the student of insect life, and even to the most ordinary observer, there is no 

 class of insects more inteiesting and wonderfnl than the Hymenoptera (membranous 

 winged insects), as our readers will no doubt admit when we say that to this ord>;r belong 

 the Bees, Humble Bees, Wasps, Ants, Gall Flies, and many other less familiar forms. 

 Naturalists, as well as poets and thinkers of all ages, have been led to admire them for 

 their wonderful powers of architecture, their economic foresight, their marvellous instincts, 

 and their admirable social organizations, all of which prove a very high order of intelli- 

 gence. Two living entomologists — Dana and Packard — place them at the head of their 

 lists in their systems of classification, considering them the most perfect insects. Dana 

 says of them, " They exhibit the normal size of the insect type, which is between eight and 

 twelve lines in length, and two and a half or three in breadth." Packard ascribes to 

 them " instincts and a kind of reason differing, perhaps, only in degree from that of man. 



The metamorphoses of the Hymenoptera are complete, that is, in their development 

 they pass through the four stages of a typical insect, viz. : the egg, the larva, the pupa or 

 chrysalis, and the imago or perfect insect. 



They have small but powerful membranous wings well ^adapted for long sustained 

 flights. 



We propose to compile such information, from scattered authors, as may be at once 

 interesting and instructive ; and will commence with the common Honey Bee. 



The Honey Bee {Apis melliflca). 



This valuable little insect has been known from the times of the ancients, and at 

 present it is cultivated over the entire civilized world, and in many uncivilized and thinly 

 peopled countries is found wild ; it was introduced into America during the seventeenth 

 century. 



In a complete hive of bees there are three very distinct kinds of individuals —the 

 female, mother, or queen bee, — the neuters or working bees whicjli are incompletely de- 

 veloped females — and the males or drones. 



A still further subdivision may be made : " There have been observed amongst bees 

 two sorts of females or queens, a large one and a small. Needham first observed the 

 latter : and their existence, P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations 

 of his father. They are bred in cells nearly as large as those of the common queens, from 

 which they differ only in size. Though they have ovaries, they have never been observed 

 to lay eggs. Reamur observes that some queens are much larger than others ; but he at- 

 tributes this difference of their size to the state of the eggs in their body. There are two 

 descri[iti')ns of males — one not bigger than the workers, supposed to be jjroduced from a 

 male egg laid in a worker's cell. The common males are much larger and will counter- 

 poise two workers. The workers are divided into the irn.r workers and the mirse Iuys ; the 

 latter are smaller than the former ; their stomach is not capable of such distension ; and 

 their office is to build the combs and cells after the foundation has been hud by the wax 

 workers, to collect honey, and to feed the larvae. The nurse bees, however, do secrete 

 wax, but in very small quantities." (Kirby and Spence's Entomology.) 



