352 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



separate from the nest, and rendered warm by a carpeting of moss and 

 grass, but without any supply of food. Early in the spring (for they make 

 their first appearance as soon as the catkins of the sallows and willows are 

 in flower), like the female wasps, they lay the foundations of a new colony 

 without the assistance of any neuters, which all perish before the winter. 

 In some instances, however, if a conjecture of M. de la Billardiere be 

 correct, these creatures have an assistant assigned to them. He says, at 

 this season (the approach of winter) he found in the nest of Bombus Syl- 

 varum some old females and workers, whose wings were fastened together 

 to retain them in the nest by hindering them from flying ; these wings in 

 each individual were fastened together at the extremity, by means of some 

 very brown wax applied above and below. 1 This he conceives to be a pre- 

 caution taken by the other bees to oblige these individuals to remain in the 

 nest, and take care of the brood that was next year to renew the popula- 

 tion of the colony. I feel, however, great hesitation in admitting this con- 

 jecture, founded upon an insulated and perhaps an accidental fact. For, 

 in the first place, the young females that come forth in the autumn, and not 

 the old ones, are the founders of new colonies, and their instinct directs 

 them to fulfil the great laws of their nature without such compulsion ; and 

 in the next, the workers are never known to survive the cold of winter. 



The employment of a large female, besides the care of the young brood 

 before described, and the collecting of honey and pollen, is principally the 

 constructing of the cells in which her eggs are to be laid ; which M. P. 

 Huber seems to think, though they often assist in it, the workers are not 

 able to complete by themselves. So rapid is the female in this work, that 

 to make a cell, fill it with pollen, commit one or two eggs to it, and cover 

 them in, requires only the short space of half an hour. Her family at first 

 consists only of workers, which are necessary to assist her in her labours ; 

 these appear in May and June ; but the males and females are later, and 

 sometimes are not produced before August and September. 2 As in the 

 case of the hive-bee, the food of these several individuals differs; for the 

 grubs that will turn to workers are fed with honey and pollen mixed, while 

 those that are destined to be males and females are supplied with pure 

 honey. 



The instinct of these larger females does not develop itself all at once : 

 for it is a remarkable fact, that when they are first hatched in the autumn, 

 not being in a condition to become mothers, they are no object of jealousy 

 to the small queens (as we shall soon see they are when engaged in ovipo- 

 sition), and are employed in the ordinary labours of the parent nest that 

 is, they collect honey and pollen, and make wax ; but they do not construct 

 cells. The building instinct seems as it were in suspense, and does not 

 manifest itself till the spring ; when the maternal sentiment impels them at 

 the same time to lay eggs, and to construct the cells in which they are to 

 be deposited. 



I have told you above, that amongst the wasps a small kind of female has 

 been discovered : this is the case also amongst the humble-bees, in whose 

 societies they are more readily detected ; not, indeed, by any observable 



1 Memoires du Museum, &c. i. 55. 



2 P. Huber, in Linn. Trans, vi. 264. This author says, however, in another 

 place (ibid. 285.), that the male eggs are laid in the spring, at the same time with 

 those that are to produce workers. Perhaps by the former he means the male 

 offspring of the small females, and by the latter those of the large? 



