PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 113 



the want of materials, of the societies of wasps, I must 

 next draw up for you the best account I can of those of 

 the humble-bees*. These form a kind of intermediate link 

 between the wasps and the hive-bees, collecting honey 

 indeed and making wax, but constructing their combs 

 and cells without the geometric precision of the latter, 

 and of a more rude and rustic kind of architecture ; and 

 distinguished from both, though they approach nearer to 

 the bees, by the extreme hairiness of their bodies. 



The population of a humble-bees nest may be divided 

 into four orders of individuals : the large females ; the 

 small females ; the males ; and the workers. 



The large females, like the female wasps, are the ori- 

 ginal founders of their republics. They are often so 

 large, that by the side of the small ones or the workers, 

 which in every other respect they exactly resemble, they 

 look like giants opposed to pygmies. They are excluded 

 from the pupa in the autumn ; and pair in that season, 

 with males produced from the eggs of the small females. 

 They pass the winter under ground, and, as appears 

 from an observation of M. P. Huber, in a particular 

 apartment, separate from the nest, and rendered warm 

 by a carpeting of moss and grass, but without any supply 

 of food. Early in the spring, (for they make their first 

 appearance as soon as the catkins of the sallows and 

 willows are in flower,) like the female wasps, they lay the 

 foundations of a new colony without the assistance of any 

 neuters, which all perish before the winter. In some in- 

 stances however, if a conjecture of M. de la Billardiere 

 be correct, these creatures have an assistant assigned to 



Bombus. Apis * *. e. 2. K. 

 VOL. II. I 



