304: COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



the Honey -bees (Apis), Humble-bees (Bombus\ Wasps 

 (Vespa\ Ants (Formica), Ichneumon-flies, and Gall-flies. 

 Those living in societies exhibit three castes : females, or 

 " queens ;" males, or " drones ;" and neuters, or sexless 

 " workers." There is but one queen in a hive, and she 

 is treated with the greatest distinction, even when dead. 

 She dwells in a large, pear-shaped cell, opening down- 

 ward. She lays three kinds of eggs : from the first 

 come forth workers, the second produces males, and the 

 last females. The drones, of which there are about eight 

 hundred in an ordinary hive, are marked by their great 

 size, their large eyes meeting on the top of the head, and 



a, be 



Pi. 277. Honey-bee (Apis mellifica) : a, female ; &, worker ; c, male. 



by being stingless. The workers, which number twenty 

 to one drone, are small and active, and provided with 

 stings, and hollow pits in the thighs, called " baskets," 

 in which they carry pollen. Their honey is nectar elabo- 

 rated in the crop by an unknown process ; while the wax 

 is secreted from the sides of the abdomen and mixed with 

 saliva. There is a subdivision of extra labor : thus there 

 are wax-workers, masons, and nurses. Ants (except the 

 Saiiba) have but two classes of workers. While Ants live 

 in hollow trees or subterranean chambers (called formi- 

 carium\ Honey-bees and Wasps construct hexagonal cells. 

 The comb of the Bee is hung vertically, that of the Wasp 

 is horizontal. 



