NMI ee) 
INSECTA. 353 
usually one female, the queen, (the king of the ancients). The working 
bees are smaller than the queen, which is also distinguished by a larger 
abdomen. The drones are as large as the queen, or larger, (the wings 
especially are larger); they have no sting, and the first joint of the tarsus 
of the posterior feet is neither invested with a wooily covering, nor length- 
ened into a point ; the eyes are larger and close together. 
The working bees are, as was first discovered by Scurracu, nothing else 
than imperfectly developed females. If the larvae of workers in the first 
three days after leaving the egg receive a more abundant and more fluid 
nutriment, and be transferred to the larger royal cells, there proceed from 
these, according to observations, which have been often distrusted, but, as 
it seems, are not deceptive, fruitful females or queens. The instinct of the 
working bees is consequently the instinct of female animals ; they accomplish 
a part of the maternal duties and take care of the larve, the progeny of 
their more highly preferred sister. Some of the working bees have the 
charge of collecting food and material for building ; others, apparently 
weaker, remain in the hive, care for the feeding of the laryz, and fulfil 
domestic duties, 
These insects live originally in hollow stems of trees. Our domestic bees 
build in hives, to which different forms have been given. When a swarm 
of bees first comes into a hive, they cover it internally with an adhesive, 
resinous fluid, to keep out the cold air. This substance the ancients named 
propolis ; the bees obtain it from the clammy buds and young leaves of 
willows, elms, &c. Next they build with the wax (which was formerly 
thought to be prepared from the pollen of flowers, but is a true secretion 
from the honey?) perpendicular flat cakes or combs, beginning from above. 
These cakes consist of hexagonal cells, placed horizontally on each side, and 
opposed to each other by their tops, which are formed of three rhombs that 
meet in a solid angle. Each of these cells has 52 millimeters in mean diameter, 
and, the royal cells excepted, the rest are nearly of the same size. Between 
the cakes they leave spaces, which serve as passages, and in which two bees 
can creep at the same time. Some cells contain eggs, others larve or 
pupe, others again honey or pollen. The cell for the tuture queen is more 
spacious, almost cylindrical; its outer surface is rough, from impressed 
angular cavities, resembling imperfect cells. The number of these royal 
1 As early as the middle of the last century (1774), a german priest (HoRNBOSTEL), 
under the name of MELiTToPuinus THEOSEBASTUS, published observations on the sepa- 
ration of wax, which however were rescued from oblivion by TREVIRANUS only twenty 
years ago. The observations of Joun Hunter, Phil. Trans. 1792, p. 143, are better 
known. The secretion of wax occurs in very thin transparent little plates on the 
abdominal surface of the working bees, and is collected in the folds between the rings. 
See G. R. Treviranus in Fr. Trepemann, G. R. and L. ©. TReviRaNvus Zeitschr. f. 
Physiol. 1. 1829, s. 62—71 ; comp. on the chemical question of the production of 
wax, a note in Lrepia’s Organ. Chem. s. 307—315, from W. F. GuNDLACH’s Natur- 
gesch. der Bienen, Cassel, 1842, and the observations of DuMAS and MILNE Epwarps, 
supported by accurate weighing, communicated to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, 
Ann. des Sc. nat. 2e Série, xx. Zool. pp. 174—181. 
VOL. I. 23 
