PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 117 



indescribable rage, all endeavouring to lay their eggs 

 in it at the same time. These small females perish in 

 the autumn. 



The males are usually smaller than the large females, 

 and larger than the small ones and workers. They may 

 be known by their longer, more filiform, and slenderer 

 antennae ; by the different shape and by the beard of 

 their mandibles. Their posterior tibice also want the 

 corbicula and pecten that distinguish the individuals of 

 the other sex, and their po-^terlor plantae have no au- 

 ricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble- 

 bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the 

 rest to repair any dan)age or derangement that may 

 befall the common habitation. 



The zoorhcrs, which are the first fruits of the queen- 

 mother's vernal parturition, assist ^er, as soon as they 

 are excluded from the pupa, in her various labours* 

 To them also is committed the construction of the 

 waxen vault that covers and defends the nest. When 

 any individual larva has spun its cocoon and assumed 

 the pupa, the workers remove all the wax from it; and 

 as soon as it has attained to its perfect state, which takes 

 place in about five days, the cocoons are used to hold 

 honey or pollen. When the bees discharge the honey 

 into them upon their return from their excursions, they 

 open their mouths and contract their bodies, which 

 occasions the honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of 

 these honey-pots are occasionally found in a single 

 nest, and more than forty are sometimes filled in a day. 

 In collecting honey, humble-bees, if they cannot get 

 at that contained in any flower by its natural open- 



