PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 353 



difference between them and the workers, but chiefly by the diversity of 

 their instincts : from the other females they are distinguished solely by 

 their diminutive size. Like those of the wasps and hive-bees, these minor 

 queens produce only male eggs, which come out in time* to fertilise the 

 young females that found the vernal colonies. M. P. Huber suspects that, 

 as in the case of the female bee, it is a different kind of food that develops 

 their ovaries, and so distinguishes them from the workers. They are 

 generally attended by a small number of males, who form their court. 



M. Huber, watching at midnight the proceedings of a nest which he kept 

 under a glass, observed the inhabitants to be in a state of great agitation ; 

 many of these bees were engaged in making a cell ; the queen-mother of 

 the colony, as she may be called, who is always extremely jealous of her 

 pigmy rivals, came and drove them away from the cell ; she in her turn 

 was driven away by the others, which pursued her, beating their wings with 

 the utmost fury, to the bottom of the nest. The cell was then constructed, 

 and two of them at the same time oviposited in it. The queen returned 

 to the charge, exhibiting similar signs of anger ; and, chasing them away 

 again, put her head into the cell, when, seizing the eggs that had been laid, 

 she was observed to devour them with great avidity. The same scene 

 was again renewed, with the same issue. After this, one of the small 

 females returned, and covered the empty cells with wax. When the 

 mother-queen was removed, several of the small females contended for the 

 cell with indescribable rage, all endeavouring to lay their eggs in it at the 

 same time. These small females perish in the autumn. 



The males are usually smaller than the large females, and larger than the 

 small ones and workers. They may be known by their longer, more fili- 

 form, and slenderer antennae ; by the different shape and by the beard of 

 their mandibles. Their posterior tibiae also want the corbicula and pecten 

 that distinguish the individuals of the other sex, and their posterior plants; 

 have no auricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble-bees are 

 not an idle race, but work in concert with the rest to repair any damage or 

 derangement that may befal the common habitation. 1 



The workers, which are the first-fruits of the queen-mother's vernal par- 

 turition, assist her, as soon as they are excluded from the pupa, in her 

 various labours. To them also is committed the construction of the waxen 

 vault that covers and defends the nest. When any individual larva has 

 spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa, the workers remove all the wax 

 from it ; and as soon as it has attained to its perfect state, which takes 

 place in about five days, the cocoons are used to hold honey or pollen. 

 When the bees discharge the honey into them upon their return from their 

 excursions, they open their mouths and contract their bodies, which occa- 

 sions the honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of these honey-pots are 

 occasionally found in a single nest, and more than forty are sometimes filled 



1 It should be here observed that, besides the proper occupants of some humble- 

 bees' nests, there are occasionally met with in them individuals of another genus of 

 the same family, so closely resembling them as to be often confounded with them, 

 which, being unprovided with the usual polliniferous organs, are supposed to be, in 

 their larva state, parasitic inhabitants of the nest. This genus, which includes Apis 

 rupestris F. &c., has been named Apathus by Mr. Newman, Psithyrus by M. de St. 

 Fargeau, and Pseudo-Bombus by Mr. Stephens. In like manner, the exotic genus 

 Chrysantheda is supposed to be parasitic on the metallic Euglossce (Hist, of Ins. by 

 Swainson and Shuckard, 169. Westwood's Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 281.)- 



