THE INDUSTRIES OF WILD BEES 285 



Humble-bees have many enemies, which sometimes 

 devour not only the honey but the bees as well. Among 

 the number are ants, predatory flies (Conops), caterpillars, 

 rats, field-mice and weasels, to say nothing of schoolboys 

 and mowers. There are many parasites, too, which 

 sponge upon the nest, the most curious being the cuckoo- 

 bees, which, though unable by lack of special structures 

 to collect pollen or make honey, are suffered by the humble- 

 bees to dwell in the nest, and to take their share of the 

 good things which have been stored up. Many solitary 

 bees also are infested by their own species of cuckoo - 

 bees (see p. 275). 



The naturalist who has been able to acquaint himself 

 with the habits of a solitary bee, such as Andraena, a 

 humble-bee of any species, and the hive-bee, will find 

 himself in a position to make some interesting comparisons, 

 or even to trace what may be called the growing civilisa- 

 tion of social insects. He will see how bees may gradually 

 associate themselves into permanent families, and families 

 into little nations. He will see how the community, 

 which in its simplest forms is short-lived, is gradually 

 enabled to last through more than one season, while in 

 the more complex societies provision is made for the 

 storing of food, a regular succession of generations, and 

 the occasional emigration of new swarms. He will see 

 how bees which were solitary, and consisted of ordinary 

 males and females only, developed a caste of small females, 

 able to lay only unfertilised drone-eggs ; how these small 

 females undertook more and more the rearing of the 

 young broods, and became at last the workers and governors 

 of the community. Social feeling, of which there could 

 be none among the solitary bees, appears in all com- 

 munities which include the offspring of more than one 

 mother, and becomes intensified until in the hive we 

 observe a division of labour, and a subordination of private 

 interests to the general good, which can only be paralleled 

 in ant-communities. Hardly less interesting is the steady 



