PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. ] 17 



antennae; by the different shape and by the beard of 

 their mandibles. Their posterior tibiae also want the 

 corbicula and pecten that distinguish the individuals of 

 the other sex, and their posterior plantae have no au- 

 ricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble- 

 bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the 

 rest to repair any damage or derangement that may be- 

 fall the common habitation. 



The workers, which are the first fruits of the queen- 

 mother's vernal parturition, assist her, as soon as they 

 are excluded from the pupa, in her various labours. 

 To them also is committed the construction of the waxen 

 vault that covers and defends the nest. When any in- 

 dividual larva has spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa, 

 the workers remove all the wax from it : and as soon as 

 it has attained to its perfect state, which takes place in 

 about five days, the cocoons are used to hold honey or 

 pollen. When the bees discharge the honey into them 

 upon their return from their excursions, they open their 

 mouths and contract their bodies, which occasions the 

 honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of these honey- 

 pots are occasionally found in a single nest, and more 

 than forty are sometimes filled in a day. In collecting 

 honey, humble-bees, if they cannot get at that contained 

 in any flower by its natural opening, will often make an 

 aperture at the base of the corolla, or even in the calyx, 

 that they may insert their proboscis in the very place 

 where nature has stored up her nectar a . M. Huber re- 

 lates a singular anecdote of some hive-bees paying a visit 

 to a nest of humble-bees placed under a box not far from 

 their hive, in order to steal or beg their honey ; which 



* Hub. Nouo. Observ. ii. 375. 



