CONSIDERATIONS FROM STUDY OF INSECTS 253 



Solitary Wasps. Some bees and wasps lead a solitary existence. 

 The solitary and digger wasps do not live in communities. Each female 

 constructs a burrow in which she lays eggs and rears her young. The 

 young are fed upon spiders and insects previously caught and then stung 

 into insensibility. The nest is closed up after food is supplied, and the 

 young later gnaw their way out. In the life history of such an insect there 

 is no communal life. 



Bumblebee. In the life history of the big bumblebee we see the 

 beginning of the community instinct. Some of the female bees (known 

 as queens) survive the winter and lay their eggs the following spring in a 

 mass of pollen, which has been previously gathered and placed in a hole 

 in the ground. The young hatch as larvae, then pupate, and finally be- 

 come workers, or females. In the working bee the egg-laying apparatus, 

 or ovipositor, is modified to be used as a sting. The workers bring in 

 pollen to the queen, in which she lays more eggs. Several broods of 

 workers are thus hatched during a summer. In the early fall a brood of 

 males or drones, and egg-laying females or queens, are produced instead 

 of workers. By means of these egg-producing females the brood is 

 started the following year. 



The Honeybee. The most wonderful communal life is seen 

 among the honeybees. 1 



The honeybee in a wild state makes its home in a hollow tree ; 

 hence the term " bee tree." In the hive the colony usually consists 

 of a queen, or egg-laying female, a few hundred drones, or males, 

 and several thousand working females, or workers. The colonies 

 vary greatly in numbers, in a wild state there being fewer in 

 the colony. The division of labor is well seen in a hive in which 

 the bees have been living for some weeks. The queen does noth- 

 ing except lay eggs, sometimes laying three thousand eggs a day 

 and keeping this up, during the warm weather, for several years. 

 She may lay one million eggs during her life. She does not, as is 

 popularly believed, rule the hive, but is on the contrary a captive 

 most of her life. Most of the eggs are fertilized by the sperm cells 

 of the males; the unfertilized eggs develop into males or drones. 



1 Their daily life may be easily watched in the schoolroom, by means of one of 

 the many good and cheap observation hives now made to be placed in a window 

 frame. Directions for making a small observation hive for school work can be found 

 in Hodge, Nature Study and Life, Chap. XIV. Bulletin No. 1, U.S. Department 

 of Agriculture, entitled The Honey Bee, by Frank Benton, is valuable for the ama- 

 teur beekeeper. It may be obtained for twenty-five cents from the Superintendent 

 of Documents, Union Building, Washington, D.C. 



