HYMENOPTERA. 4-31 



all the others form their habitation in it, frequently descending to a depth of 

 one or two feet, in the way we are about to describe. Dry plains, fields, and 

 hills, are the localities they select. These subterranean cavities, which are of 

 considerable extent and wider than high, have the figure of a dome. The 

 ceiling is constructed with earth and with moss, carded by these insects, 

 which they transport there, fibre by fibre, entering the cavity backwards. 

 A coating of coarse wax is laid over its walls. Sometimes a simple opening, 

 designedly left at the bottom of the nest, serves for an entrance, and then again 

 a winding passage covered with moss, and a foot or two long, leads to the 

 domicile. The bottom of the cavity is lined with a layer of leaves, for the 

 accommodation of the brood. The females first place brown, irregular, 

 mamilliform masses of wax there, called patee by Reaumur, and which, on 

 account of their shape and colour, he compares to truffles. Their internal 

 cavities are destined to enclose the eggs and larvae. There the latter live in 

 society until the moment has arrived when they are to become nymphs ; they 

 then separate and spin ovoid and silken cocoons, laid vertically against each 

 other. In this state the insect is always reversed, or, like the female nymphs 

 of the common bee, with the head downwards ; we always find these cocoons 

 perforated inferiorly, when the perfect insects have left them. Reaumur says 

 that the larvae feed on the wax which forms their dwelling; according to 

 Huber, it merely protects them from cold and wet, their aliment consisting of 

 a tolerably large quantity of pollen moistened with honey, with which the 

 labourers carefully supply them ; when it is consumed they perforate the 

 cover of their cells, furnish them with more, and shut them up again. They 

 even enlarge them when the increased growth of the larvae causes them to be 

 too much confined. We also find in these nests three or four small bodies 

 composed of brown wax, or the same matter as the patee, and shaped like 

 tumblers or almost cylindrical pots, always open, and more or less filled with 

 good honey. These reservoirs of the honey are not always placed in the same 

 situation. 



The larvae are hatched in four or five days after the eggs have been laid, 

 and complete their metamorphosis in the months of June and July. The 

 labourers remove the wax that clogs their cocoon to facilitate their issue, and 

 assist the female in her work. The number of cells which serve as habitations 

 to the larvae and nymphs increases, and they form irregular combs placed in 

 stories, on the edges of which we particularly observe the brown patee of 

 Reaumur. According to Huber, the labourers are extremely fond of the ova 

 of the female, and sometimes, in her absence, even break open the cells in 

 which they are deposited, in order to .suck the milky fluid they contain ! a 

 most extraordinary fact, which seems to belie the known attachment of the 

 labourers for the germs of that race of which they are the protectors and 

 guardians. The wax produced by them, according to this same naturalist, 

 has the same origin as that of our domestic bee, or is merely elaborated 

 honey that also transudes through the intervals of some of the abdominal 

 annuli. 



