180 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS [B. V 



7. After the grub is covered up, it has wings and 

 feei ; and when it has acquired wings, it bursts through 

 the membrane, and flies away. It evacuates an excremen- 

 titious matter while it is a worm, but not afterwards, until 

 it is perfected, as I observed before. If a person cuts off 

 the head of the grub before its wings are acquired, the 

 other bees devour it ; if a person having cut off the wings 

 of a drone lets it go, the bees will eat off the wings of the 

 other drones. 



8. The bee will live for six years, some have lived for 

 seven, and if a swarm lasts nine or ten years, it is con 

 sidered to have done well. In Pontus there are very white 

 bees, which make honey twice every month. In Thernis- 

 cyra, near the river Thermodon, are found bees which make 

 cells in the earth, and in hives with a very small quantity 

 of wax, but their honey is thick. The cells are smootL 

 and homogeneous. They only do this in the winter, and 

 not all the year round ; for there is a great deal of ivy in 

 the place, which flowers at this season of the year, and from 

 this they carry away the honey. From the higher regions 

 of Amisus a kind of white honey is procured, which the 

 bees form upon the trees without wax. The same is also 

 found in another place in Pontus. There are also bees 

 which form triple cells in the earth ; these form honey, but 

 never have grubs. All such as these, however, are not cells, 

 neither are they formed by every kind of bee. 



CHAPTER XX. 



1. THE anthrenae 1 and wasps form cells for their progeny 

 when they have no rulers, but are wandering about in 

 search of them, the anthrenae upon some high place, the 

 wasps in holes. But when they have the rulers they form 

 their cells underground. All their cells are hexagonal, like 

 those of bees ; they are not formed of wax, but of a web- 

 like membrane, made of the bark of trees. The cells of 

 the anthrena3 are far more elegant than those of wasps. 

 Upon the side of their cells they place their progeny, in the 

 manner of the bees, like a drop of liquid united to the wall 

 of the cell. The progeny in all the cells is not alike, but iu 

 Borne they are so large as to be almost ready for flight, in 

 others are nymphse, in others grubs. 



1 Hoi-net, Apis terrestris. 



