PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 123 



bees, a large one and a small. Mr. Needham was the 

 first that observed the latter ; and their existence, M. P. 

 Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observa- 

 tions of his father. They are bred in cells as large as 

 those of the common queens, from which they differ only 

 in size. Though they have ovaries, they have never 

 been observed to lay eggs a . Having never seen one of 

 these, for they are of very rare occurrence, my descrip- 

 tion must be confined to the common female, the genuine 

 monarch of the hive b . 



a Bonnet, x. P. Huber in Linn. Trans, vi. 283. Reaumur (v. 373) 

 observes that some queens are much larger than others ; but he at- 

 tributes this difference of their size to the state of the eggs in their 

 body. 



b As every reader is not aware of the differences of form, &c. that 

 distinguish the females, males, and workers from each other (I have 

 seen the male mistaken for a distinct species, and placed in a cabinet 

 as Apis lagopoda, L.), I shall here subjoin a description of each. 



i. The body of the Female bee is considerably longer than that of 

 either the drone or the worker. The prevailing colour in all three is 

 the same, black or black-brown ; but with respect to the female this 

 does not appear to be invariably the case; for not to insist upon 

 Virgil's royal bees glittering with ruddy or golden spots and scales, 

 where allowance must be made for poetic licence Reaumur affirms, 

 after describing some differences of colour in different individuals of 

 this sex, that a queen may always be distinguished, both from the 

 workers and males, by the colour of her body *. If this observation 

 be restricted to the colour of some parts of her body, it is correct ; 

 but it will not apply to all generally (unless, as I suspect may be the 

 case, by the term body he means the abdomen), for, in all that I 

 have had an opportunity of examining, the prevailing colour, as I 

 have stated it, is the same. 



The head is not larger than that of the workers ; but the tongue is 

 shorter and more slender, with straighter maxillae. The mandibles 

 are forficate, and do not jut out like theirs into a prominent angle ; 

 they are of the colour of pitch with a red tinge, and terminate in 

 two teeth, the exterior being acute, and the interior blunt or trun- 



* Reaumur, v. 375. 



