AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 213 



Humble-bees 1 , which in respect of their general policy must, when com- 

 pared with bees and wasps, be regarded as rude and untutored villagers, 

 exhibit, nevertheless, marks of affection to their young quite as strong as 

 their more polished neighbours. The females, like those of wasps, take 

 a considerable share in their education. When one of them has with 

 great labour constructed a commodious waxen cell, she next furnishes it 

 with a store of pollen moistened with honey ; and then, having deposited 

 six or seven eggs, carefully closes the orifice and minutest interstices with 

 wax. But this is not the whole of her task. By a strange instinct, which, 

 however, may be necessary to keep the population within due bounds, the 

 workers, while she is occupied in laying her eggs, endeavour to seize 

 them from her, and, if they succeed, greedily devour them. To prevent 

 this violence, her utmost activity is scarcely adequate ; and it is only 

 after she has again and again beat off the murderous intruders and pursued 

 them to the furthest verge of the nest, that she succeeds in her operation. 

 When finished, she is still under the necessity of closely guarding the cell, 

 which the gluttonous workers would otherwise tear open, and devour the 

 eggs. This duty she performs for six or eight hours with the vigilance of 

 an Argus, at the end of which time they lose their taste for this food, and 

 will not touch it even when presented to them. Here the labours of the 

 mother cease, and are succeeded by those of the workers. These know 

 the precise hour when the grubs have consumed their stock of food, and 

 from that time to their maturity regularly feed them with either honey or 

 pollen, introduced in their proboscis through a small hole in the cover of 

 the cell opened for the occasion and then carefully closed. 



They are equally assiduous in another operation. As the grubs increase 

 in size, the cell which contained them becomes too small, and in their 

 exertions to be more at ease they split its thin sides. To fill up these 

 breaches as fast as they occur with a patch of wax is the office of the 

 workers, who are constantly on the watch to discover when their services 

 are wanted ; and thus the cells daily increase in size, in a way which to 

 an observer ignorant of the process seems very extraordinary. 



The last duty of these affectionate foster-parents is to assist the young 

 bees in cutting open the cocoons which have enclosed them in the state 

 ofpupce. A previous labour, however, must not be omitted. The workers 

 adopt similar measures with the hive-bee for maintaining the young pupae 

 concealed in these cocoons in a genial temperature. In cold weather and 

 at night they get upon them and impart the necessary warmth by brooding 

 over them in clusters. 2 Connected with this part of their domestic eco- 



1 Dr. Johnson was ignorant of the etymology of this word. It is clearly derived 

 from the German Hummel or Hummel JBiene, a name probably given it from its 

 sound. Our English name would be more significant were it altered to Humming- 

 bee or Booming-bee. 



2 A new and very remarkable fact observed by Mr. Newport, and communicated 

 in his valuable paper on the temperature of insects, is that in the process of incuba- 

 tion above referred to, especially that adopted ten or twelve hours before the nymph 

 makes its appearance as a perfect humble-bee, the required augmentation of heat is 

 produced by the nurse or brooding-bees voluntarily increasing the number of their 

 respirations, which at first are very gradual, but become more and more frequent 

 until they reach sometimes 120 or 130 per minute ; and Mr. Newport has seen a bee 

 on the combs continue perseveringly to respire at this rate for eight or ten hours till 

 its temperature was greatly increased and its body bathed in perspiration, when she 

 would generally discontinue her office for a time, and an individual occasionally take 



r 3 



