^7d INSECTA. 



verses the interior of the thorax, and thence passes to the an- 

 terior stomach, or rather crop, which contains the honey. The 

 following stomach, according to Reaumur, contains the pollen 

 or wax-like matter, and has its surface marked by annular and 

 transverse rugae, in the manner of hoops. This abdominal ca- 

 vity in the females contains two large ovaries composed of nu- 

 merous sacculi, each of which encloses from sixteen to seventeen 

 eggs. Each ovary terminates at the anus, near which it dilates 

 into a pouch, Avhere the egg is arrested, and receives a viscid 

 humour furnished by a neighbouring gland. According to the 

 observations of Huber, Jun., the inferior semi-annuli of the abdo- 

 men of the labourers, the first and last excepted, have each, on 

 their internal surface, two pouches, in which the wax is secreted 

 and moulded into laminae, that afterwards ooze out through the 

 intervals between the rings. Under these pouches is a particu- 

 lar membrane, formed of a very small network, Avith hexagonal 

 meshes, that unites to the lining membrane of the abdominal 

 cavity. 



These observations on the internal anatomy of the Bee, with 

 the exception of some few modifications, will apply to the Bombi 

 properly so called* . Wax, according to the experiments of the 

 same naturalist, is nothing more than elaborated honey, and the 

 pollen mixed with a little of that substance only serves as food 

 for these Insticts and their larvae. 



M. Huber distinguishes two kinds of labourers or working 

 Bees. The first, which he calls cirieres, collect provisions and 

 all the materials requisite for building, and employ the same. 

 The second, or the nourrices (^tiwses'), smaller and weaker, are 

 formed for retirement, and their functions are almost reduced 

 to the rearing of the young, and the internal economy of the hive. 



We have seen that the labourers or working bees resemble 

 the females in several particulars. Certain curious experiments 

 have proved that they are of one sex, and that they may become 

 mothers, if, when in their state of larvae and three days after 

 they are hatched, they receive a peculiar kind of aliment, or that 

 which is given to the queen-larvae. But even then they can only 

 acquire all the faculties of the latter by being placed in a larger 

 cell, or one similar to that of the larvae of the female proper, the 

 royal cell. If fed in this way in their own cell, they can only 

 produce males, and differ from the females proper by being 

 smaller. The labourers, then, are merely females whose ovaries 

 have not been developed, in consequence of the nature of the 

 food given to them while in the state of larvte. 



The substance of which their combs are composed, being ill 

 adapted to resist the effects of the weather, and as they do not 

 construct a nest or general envelope, these Insects can only 

 establish their colonies in cavities where their work finds a na- 

 tural shelter. The labourers, which are alone charged with the 

 work, form those laminae composed of two opposing rows of 



* I bave also verified tliis fact. See ray Memoir on this subject in the Ann. dvt 

 Mus. d'Hist. Nat. 



