THE BEE AND THE WASP. 153 



on the contrary, is the founder as well as the mother of her 

 colony. When she wakes up from her lethargy in the 

 spring, she sallies out to find a suitable spot for her future 

 kingdom. Having fixed upon it, she proceeds to build her 

 cells unaided. She has to feed herself while engaged on 

 this labour, and when a certain number of cells are com- 

 pleted she has then to store them with food sufficient to 

 support the grubs, until, their second stage completed, they 

 are ready to issue out and to take their share in the work. 

 Even when she has an army of children, she continues to 

 set them an example of labour and perseverance, supervising 

 the operations and working diligently and continuously 

 herself. She is the life and soul of her community, and if 

 by any accident she dies before the other females, which 

 are hatched late in the season, appear, the community is 

 entirely disorganised, the neuters cease from their labours, 

 and the whole colony perishes. Nature, too, has done 

 much more for the bee than for the wasp, for the former 

 naturally secretes the wax from which it forms its cells, 

 while the wasp has no such faculty, and has to construct 

 its cells as well as its house from the paper it manufactures. 

 The wasp is as fond of sweets as is the bee, and while 

 a portion of the community are engaged upon the work of 

 collecting materials, manufacturing paper, and building, the 

 others collect sweets from flowers or fruit. Having filled 

 themselves with these, they return home, and on entering 

 the hive mount to the upper cells, and there disgorge the 

 contents of their honey bag for the benefit of the workers. 

 The bee is industrious, it may be admitted, but it is 

 industrious in a quiet and methodical way. There is no 

 hurry about the bee, and any one who watches it at work 



