LIFE-HISTORY OF BOMBUS 3; 



unbroken, but as the larvae grow, B. terrestris, 

 lucorum, and latreillellus leave visible holes in the 

 wax, which, when the larvae approach full size, become 

 large. The larvae would now run the risk of falling 

 out of their soft wax covering, which would mean 

 their destruction, for a naked larva is always carried 

 out of the nest ; but they avoid this danger by en- 

 closing themselves in a loose web of silk, doing this 

 a day or two before they begin to spin their cocoons. 



A larva that happens to lie underneath a large 

 number of others generally has to build its cocoon 

 almost horizontally, so that the end through which 

 the perfect bee will escape may be free. Such a 

 larva often fails to obtain a sufficient supply of 

 food, with the result that it does not grow to full 

 size and develops into a small bee. In this way 

 tiny workers I have seen some no larger than a 

 house-fly are sometimes produced, particularly in 

 the nests of the carder-bees, who do not feed their 

 young with such care as the underground species. 

 If the worker is much undersized, her wings are 

 almost sure to be malformed, so that she is never 

 able to leave the nest. 



The workers do not continue to use the queen's 

 honey-pot, but, leaving it to grow mouldy and decay, 

 they store the honey they gather in the cocoons they 

 have vacated, adding wax to the rims of these to 

 increase their capacity. They also, when the cells 

 are full, reduce the size of their mouths with wax. 

 The carder-bees, which produce little wax, usually 

 rely entirely on these vacated cocoons for the storage 



