368 INSECTS AT HOME. 



CHAPTEE V. 

 SOCIAL BEES. 



The Social Bees may be roughly divided into two groups, 

 the Wild Bees and the Domesticated Bees. I use the latter 

 terms intentionally in the plm-al number, because there are 

 several species of Domesticated Bees, two of which are culti- 

 vated in this country. We will begin with the Wild Social 

 Bees, populaiiy known as Humble Bees, Hummel Bees, or 

 DuMBLE Bees, the popular name evidently referring to the 

 deep humming sound which they produce when on the wing. 

 In this country the greater part of them constitute one genus, 

 namely Bombus, of which we will take some of the most 

 conspicuous insects as examples of the rest. 



In this genus of Bees, the body is egg-shaped, and thickly 

 covered with hair. The head is somewhat triangular in form, 

 and the antennae are slender, elbowed, and a little longer 

 than the head. On the crown there is a semilunar groove or 

 impression, in which the ocelli are placed. The mandibles are 

 stout, and their tips are rounded and grooved. Tlie upper 

 wings have one marginal and three submarginal cells. The 

 females have on the tibia of the hind legs a thick fringe of 

 stiff hairs, which forms a sort of basket for carrying the 

 pollen with which the young are fed. This apjDaratus is 

 scientifically termed the corbicula, or little basket. In the 

 males, the mandibles are fringed with curled hair, and there 

 are no pollen-baskets on the hind legs. 



The history of these Bees is at once interesting, simple, and 

 perplexing, and perhaps is the more interesting on account of 

 the extraordinary and apjDarently contradictory mixture of 

 .simplicity and complication. Everyone knows the Humble 

 Bees, but it is not everyone who can say, upon seeing a 



