USEFUL INSECTS 191 



other matters which their bodies afford, or the help which 

 they may give us in our struggle with invading species of 

 their class. 



Probably the first insect to be brought into friendly 

 relations with man was the honey-bee. This creature, like 

 the most of our domesticated animals, is a native of the great 

 continent of the Old World, though it has now been con- 

 veyed to all the fiowery lands of the world where the season 

 is long enough for it to win its harvest. In its wild as 

 well as in its tame state the honey-bee dwells in one of the 

 most perfect and highly elaborated of insect societies. It is 

 a member of the group of membranous-winged insects known 

 to naturalists as Hynienoptera, an order which includes all the 

 elaborate societies of the class except the colonies of white 

 ants. It is characteristic of all these colonial insects that, 

 from the experience of ages, they have learned the great 

 principles of the division of labor and of profit sharino- 

 towards which mankind are now clumsily stumbling ; the 

 great w^ork which their societies are able to do is accom- 

 plished by a complete specialization of function and a perfect 

 share in the commonwealth. So far has this elaboration 

 gone, that in the bees the work of reproducing the kind is 

 allotted to forms which do no labor ; all the work of the hive 

 being effected by individuals which are sterile, and whose 

 sole function it is to toil unendingly for the profit of the 

 great household. 



While the greater part of the kindred of the bees either 

 construct the nests for their young in the manner of our 

 wasps or hornets, building them entirely in the open air, or 

 excavate underground chambers in the fashion of our 

 bumble-bees, our domesticated form at some time in the 



