HYMENOPTERA. 463 



of the same colour; a transverse greyish band, formed of down, at the base 

 of the third and following abdominal annuli. 



The true Bees are much smaller and more oblong than the Bombi. Their 

 body is merely furnished with down in particular places, and its colours 

 vary but little. Their communities consist of labourers or neuters, usually 

 from fifteen to twenty thousand in number, and sometimes extending to 

 thirty thousand; of from six to eight hundred males, and in some hives of a 

 thousand and more, called Drones, and commonly of a single female, con- 

 sidered by the ancients as the king or head of the community, and styled a 

 queen by us. 



The labourers, smaller than the others, have their antennae composed of 

 twelve joints, and the abdomen of six annuli; the first joint of the posterior 

 tarsi, or the square piece, is dilated in the form of a pointed palette, at the 

 exterior angle of their base, and densely covered on its inner side with short 

 fine, silky down; they are armed with a sting. The female presents the 

 same characters, but the abdomen of the labourers is shorter. Their man- 

 dibles are spoon-shaped, and not dentated. In the outer side of their pos- 

 terior tibise is that smooth depression edged with hairs, called the corbeitte 

 or basket. 



The males and females are the largest; their mandibles are hairy and 

 emarginated under the point; the proboscis is shorter, particularly in the 

 males. These latter differ from the former and from the labourers in their 

 antennae, which consist of thirteen joints; in their more rounded head and 

 larger eyes, elongated and united above; in their smaller and more hairy 

 mandibles, in the absence of a sting, in the four short anterior legs, of 

 which the two first are arcuated, and finally in the square piece which has 

 neither palette nor silken brush. 



The interior of the abdominal cavity of the females and labourers presents 

 two stomachs, the intestines, and poison sac. A tolerably large aperture 

 situated at the superior base of the proboscis, under the labrum, and closed 

 by a little triangular piece called langue by Reaumer, the epipharynx of 

 Savigny, transmits the aliment and leads to a slender oesophagus that tra- 

 verses the interior of the thorax, and thence passes to the anterior stomach, 

 or rather crop, which contains the honey. The following stomach, accord- 

 ing to Reaumur, contains the pollen or wax-like matter, and has its surface 

 marked by annular and transverse rugae; in the manner of hoops. This 

 abdominal cavity of the females contains two large ovaries composed of 

 numerous sacculi, each of which encloses from sixteen to seventeen eggs. 

 According to the observations of Huber, Jun., the inferior semi-annuli 

 of the abdomen of the labourers, the first and last excepted, have each, on 

 their internal surface, two pouches in which the wax is secreted and mould- 

 ed into laminae, that afterwards ooze out through the intervals between the 

 rings. 



These observations on the internal anatomy of the Bee, with the excep- 

 tion of some few modifications, will apply to the Bombi properly so called. 

 Wax, according to the experiments of the same naturalists, is nothing more 



