1 64 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



angels they appear capable of biting sharply. Their 

 colonies are often far more numerous than those of 

 the Apides, and several fertile females are said to live 

 together in harmony. They construct homes in 

 suitable crevices in hollow trunks, or in perpendicular 

 banks, even in cavities of rocks by the sea-shore. 

 The form of the habitation varies according to the 

 species, but most kinds of Meliponce are masons. It 

 would appear that the Old World has produced far 

 more advanced forms of animal life than the tropics 

 of the New World, and these bees offer no exception 

 to the rule. Their nests may be of enormous pro- 

 portions, and immense quantities of pollen and honey 

 are stored, yet their architecture is very inferior to the 

 skill exhibited in the European hive. The Melipona 

 are as prodigal of wax as the others are sparing of it. 

 Their comb is composed of a single series of alveoli * 

 applied laterally to each other, and not of two strata 

 or layers placed end to end. Generally they are 

 oblong, showing only here and there an approxima- 

 tion to the elegant hexagonal shape, and appear to 

 be destined solely as the residences of the larvae. 

 The honey is stored apart from the brood-cells in 

 great waxen vases or vesicles, with thick and strong 

 walls. Some of these sacs have a diameter of an 

 inch and a half, or about as large as a pigeon's egg. 



The most numerous and interesting masons, Meli- 

 pona fasciculata, are about one-third shorter than Apis 

 mellifica. Little crowds of the workers are constantly 

 employed in gathering clay, and the rapidity and pre- 

 cision of their movements while thus engaged are 

 wonderful (see Fig. 26). With the material collected 



