SOLITARY WASPS AND MUD WASPS 



3003 



testing for the mastery, and each should simultaneously have the chance to deliver a 

 sting which might prove fatal to both, each releases the other, dreading to leave the 

 hive queenless. 



Inseparable from these phenomena is that of swarming or the bud- 

 ding off of new colonies from the mother hive. Owing to the instinct 

 of the workers, who can arrest or accelerate development by regulating the food sup- 

 ply, a new queen is always ready when a swarm of bees is prepared to leave the 

 overcrowded hive. This queen is, however, not permitted to leave her cell till the 

 actual moment of flight; and all along has to be protected from the reigning queen, 

 by whom, if opportunity were afforded she would be killed. Indeed, when the 

 swarming season is over, the actual sovereign is permitted to make short work of all 

 her rivals. The function of the nurses, as their name implies, is to rear the young, 

 and, if necessary, preserve the queens. After the males, or drones, have fulfilled 

 their duties, they are massacred in thousands by the workers; even the young grubs 

 and pupae being dragged from their cells and killed. In many wasp societies, these 

 matters are, however, more leniently arranged, since the males usually assist in the 

 general duties of the colony. Still even these exhibit 1 an unaccountable habit, all 

 the grubs and puprc being dragged out and slain as winter approaches. Whether 

 the wasps themselves begin to experience the pinch of hunger, and wish to close 

 mouths which must otherwise starve, or what may be the motive for such action, is 

 beyond our ability to guess. Since every wasp, save here and there a large female, 

 or queen, perishes at the approach of winter, the massacre cannot be justified on the 

 score of prudential social policy. 



SOLITARY WASPS AND MUD WASPS Families MASARID^E and 



The true wasps may be conveniently divided into solitary and social wasps, al 



MUD WASPS. 



I. Odynerus parietum, female, with nest; 2. Chrysis ignita; 3. Polistes gallica, female and nes 



though there is a more or less complete transition between the two. Of the typical 

 solitary wasps (Masaridtz*) , which are mostly tropical forms, and constitute a link 



