272 IXSECTA. 



bourers immediately clean out the vacant cells, in order that 

 they may be prepared for tlie reception of another egg. This is 

 not the case, hoAvever, aa ith the royal cells ; they are destroyed 

 and new ones constructed, if necessary. The eggs containing 

 males are produced t-wo months later, and those of the female 

 soon after the latter. 



This succession of generations forms so many particular 

 communities, prepared to form new colonies, and known by the 

 name of swarms. A single hive sometimes produces three or 

 four; but the last are always small. Those which weigh from 

 six to eight pounds are the best. Finding themselves too much 

 confined in their habitation, they frequently leave their natal 

 locality. Particular signs intimate to the owner the loss with 

 which he is menaced ; he endeavours to prevent it, or to profit 

 by the emigration. 



Dreadful combats sometimes take jjlace among Bees. At a 

 particular epoch in which the males become useless, the females 

 having been fecundated — from the month of June to that of 

 July — the labourers put them to death, extending the carnage 

 even to the larvae and nymph of that sex. 



Bees liave enemies both external and internal, and are subject 

 to various diseases. 



The intelligent apiarist bestows particular attention on these 

 animals, carefully selects, among the difterent kinds of hives 

 that have been invented, that which is the least expensive in its 

 construction, and the best adapted to preserve and rear therfi ; 

 he studies their habits, foresees the accidents with which tliey 

 are threatened, and never has occasion to regret his labour and 

 trouble. The origin of the attention bestowed upon Bees is lost 

 in the remotest antiquity. With the ancient Egyptians the Bee 

 was the hieroglyphic emblem of royalty. 



The true Bees are only found in tlie eastern continent ; and 

 those of southern and eastern Europe, and of Egypt, differ from 

 those that inhabit France, which have been transported to Ame- 

 rica and other places where they are now naturalized. 



The species found In the Isle of France and in Madagascar 

 — A. unicolor, Lat. — produces honey called vert, or green, that 

 is held in high estimation *. 

 The last subgenus of the social Apiarise, or 



Melipona, Illig. Lat. — Trigona, Jar., 

 Is distinguished from the preceding one by the form of the first 

 joint of the posterior tarsi, which is narrowed at base, or has the 

 figure of a reversed triangle, and is destitute of striae on the silken 

 brush of its inner side. There are but two complete cubital cells in 

 the superior wings, while in the Bees there are three, the last linear 

 and oblique t- 



* For the other species, see Lat., in the Obs. Zool. et Anal, of Messrs. Hum- 

 boldt and Bonplaud. 



f Those species, in which the mandibles are not dentated, are the Mempon^, 

 properly so called. Those, in which they arc, form the genus TniuoNA. See my 

 <3cncr. Crust, et Insect., IV, 182. 



