114 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



out the assistance of any neuters, which all perish before 

 the winter. In some instances however, if a conjec- 

 ture of M. de la Billardiere be correct, these creatures 

 have an assistant assigned to them. He says, at this 

 season (the approach of winter) he found in the nest of 

 Apis Si/lvaritm (Kirby) some old females and workers, 

 w hose wings were fastened together to retain them in 

 the nest by hindering them from flying ; these wings 

 in each individual were fastened together at the ex- 

 tremity, by means of some very brown wax applied 

 above and below'. This he conceives to be a precau- 

 tion taken by the other bees to oblige these indivi- 

 duals to remain in the nest and take care of the brood 

 that was next year to renew the population of the co- 

 lony. I feel, however, great hesitation in admitting 

 this conjecture, founded upon an insulated and per- 

 haps an accidental fact. For, in the first place, the 

 young females that come forth in the autumn, and not 

 the old ones, are the founders of new colonies ; and 

 their instinct directs them to fulfil the great laws of 

 their nature without such compulsion ; and in the next, 

 the workers are never known to survive the cold of 

 winter. 



The employment of the large females, besides the 

 care of the young brood before described, and the col- 

 lecting of honey and pollen, is principally the construc- 

 tion of the cells in which her eggs are to be laid; 

 which M. P, Huber seems to think, though they often 

 assist in it, the workers are not able to complete by 

 themselves. So rapid is the female in this work, that 

 to make a cell, fill it with pollen, commit one or two 



' Annaks du Museum, &c. i, 55. 



