512 



Saw-riies, Gall-riies, Ichneumons, 



but not with the Vespoid wasps, including the social kinds. The mouth 

 in all bees is provided with a well-developed pair of strong mandibles, 

 either sharp and toothed for digging in the ground or tunneling in wood, 

 or smooth and s{)Oon-likc for moulding wax. The 

 food of both adults and larva is always flower- 

 nectar (made into honey) and pollen (for the very 

 young larvx a predigested food, bee-jelly, is 

 regurgitated by the nurse workers) and never in- 

 sects, paralyzed, killed, or chewed, as with the 

 wasps. The bee mouth is therefore fitted for the 

 lapping or sucking up of nectar, as well as for 

 scraping off and crushing pollen. The ma.xilla; 

 and labium are more or less intimately joined 

 by membranes and chitinous bars and are capable 

 of much variety of movement in the way of fold- 

 ing, retraction, and extension. The antenna; are 

 elbowed and their terminal, smooth, cylindrical 

 segments are provided with numerous sense-pits 

 and papilla?, special organs of olfactory and tactile 

 perception. The compound eyes are large and 

 sight is undoubtedly better than in most insects. 

 There are only male and female individuals in 

 the solitary species, both winged, and the females 

 Fig. 717.— Mouth-parts of provided with a sting; in the social species 

 a long-tongued bee, An- (bumble- and honey-bees) there are in addition 



gtat'ircxtend^ed' tong°ue '^°'^'^^'" '"dividuals (females of arrested sexual 

 (glossa of labium), (.\ftcr development but with special structural develop- 

 Sharp; much enlarged.) ^^^^^ ^^.^-^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^.jj^g^j ^^d furnished with 



a sting. The eggs are laid in cells in the ground, in plant-stems, in logs 

 or posts, or made of wax (hive-bee) or hollowed out of a food-mass of 

 pollen (bumblebees), and the hatching larvffi find stored up for them a suf- 

 fu icnt food-supply for their larval life, or they are brought food constantly 

 during this life. These larva; are footless, white, soft-bodied grubs, which 

 pupate in their cells. The issuing imagines gnaw their way out of the 

 cells. 



Of the short-tongued bees all are solitary or gregarious; of the long- 

 tongued most are solitary, but a few, the bumble- and the honey-bee, live in 

 communities. I shall give an account of a few of the more interesting or 

 more familiar kinds of bees, illustrating the various tj'pical habits of nest- 

 building as well as the graduallv progressive tendency toward that speciali- 

 zation of life, communism, exemplified in its extreme condition by the hive- 

 bee. 



