REAWAKENINGS 87 



each member from within its silken cocoon. These are all 

 "workers," that is to say, usually sterile females, but they 

 are not structurally different from the queens, as the worker 

 hive-bees are. The first set of daughters begin to help the 

 queen-mother to collect provender, and soon there is a second 

 set. The queen ceases to forage and remains in the nest, 

 exclusively maternal. Some of her daughters may produce 

 eggs, which develop without being fertilised. In any case, 

 towards the end of Summer numerous drones or males are 

 produced and several fully developed females the future 

 queens. 



Thus there is a large family consisting of one queen- 

 mother, many workers, a smaller number of drones, numerous 

 young queens, and, it may be, some grandchildren. A nest 

 of Bombus terrestris in August contained 35 young 

 queens, 20 drones, and 160 workers. The average number 

 of a colony of Bombus muscorum in Britain is said to be 

 about 120 namely, 25 females, 36 males, 59 workers. But 

 the family as such is shortlived, thus differing markedly 

 from the bee-hive. All the members die off in the Autumn, 

 except a few fertilised queens, which rest, as we have seen, 

 throughout the Winter. 



The nest of the humble-bee, which country boys often 

 destroy for the sake of the honey, is at a far lower level of 

 architecture than that of the hive-bee or the wasp. The 

 cells are of different sizes, those of the queens being largest, 

 of the workers smallest. They are not regularly arranged in 

 tiers, but a second set is built on the ruins of the first. No 

 cell is used twice as a cradle, but an old cradle may be used 

 for storage. An understanding of the nest is not facilitated 

 by the fact that some of the cells are built, not by Bombus, 

 but by a friendly parasitic bee (Psithyms or Apathus) that 

 lives in the humble-bees' nests. Dr. David Sharp writes : * 



1 Cambridge Natural History, vol. vi. p. $7. 



