THE INSEC-J' WORLD. 



417 



dies each year. We see early in the spring, when the fruit- 

 trees are in bloom, many specimens dronint>- about on the 

 flowers, but often also along road -sides, especially where there is 

 a declivity ; or in fields where there are a few rocks, or where 

 there are holes in the ground. There we often notice an indi 

 vidual buzzing over one spot for several minutes at a time, 

 apparently subjecting it to the closest kind of examination. This 

 is indeed what the insect is doing : she is seeking a place to 

 start a home. This she finds in an abandoned mouse-hole, or 

 other cavity in the ground, and here begins her nest, lining it 

 with moss, with fragments of leaves or grass, or with whatever 

 may be most convenient. Then she gathers a mass of pollen, 

 upon which a number of eggs are laid. No comb is built ; but the 

 larvae, when they hatch, burrow into the pollen mass, to which the 

 mother adds constantly as necessity requires. When full-grown 

 each forms a- smooth cavity, which it lines with a silken cocoon 

 and changes to a pupa. The cocoon is strengthened from the 

 outside by the mother, with wax, and in due time we have a little 

 brood of worker " bumbles" resembling their parent in all except 

 size and the incomplete sexual development. Not until after mid- 

 summer does the queen, reinforced by the workers which she has 

 raised, lay eggs that produce males and females, and these are fed 

 upon food gathered by the workers. The old female dies when the 

 new brood of sexually complete individuals has hatched. The 

 latter mate, and the workers and males also die on the approach of 

 cold weather, leaving only the now impregnated females to survive. 

 Taken altogether, the order Hymenoptera contains insects that 

 are decidedly beneficial to the farmer. The first series only, to 

 which the " saw-fliies" and the "borers" belong, are injurious, 

 and these may always be recognized by the fact that the abdomen 

 joins the thorax by its whole width, instead of being fastened 

 simply by a stalk or petiole. Of course, the ants are sometimes 

 troublesome and indirectly injurious, but, as a whole, the species 

 are so overwhelmingly beneficial that the order deserves to be 

 encouraged in every way possible. Bees, wasps, and hornets 

 are particularly desirable inhabitants of a locality, and in a quiet 

 way do much to destroy injurious insects, — as much, perhaps, as 

 the parasites which also belong to the order ; while the bees of all 

 kinds are simply indispensable to the fruit-grower as pollenizers. 



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