38 



INSECTS. 



more than a few of such luxuries. Those fed on the less nutritious bread turn out 

 workers, or non-fertile females. For the males special conditions are arranged by 

 the queen when laying the eggs. Royal cells, framed for the feeding of queens, 

 are much larger than those for workers. In secreting wax for the cells, bees 

 having eaten as much honey as they can conveniently carry, hang in a cluster from 

 the top of the hive. Soon the wax begins to burst from glands beneath the edges 

 of the segments of the body, and is rubbed off with the legs. Cell-construction 

 now begins, and in addition to the wax, a sort of resinous cement, drawn from the 

 sap of conifers, is used to strengthen the walls at their angles, and also to cover the 

 inside of the hive. The six-sided form of the cells of the honey-bee 

 appears to have been evolved after ages of gradual modification from 

 the simple cylinder which would be formed by a cylindrical body — as that of a 

 bee — moulding wax around itself ; this form alone admitting of the greatest 

 number of cells being placed side by side, and tier by tier, without leaving waste 



Honey-Bee. 



INMATES OF A HIVE. 



A — 1, Queen ; 2, Worker (non-fertile female) ; 3, Drone or male ; 4, Mandible from outside. (All slightly enlarged.) 

 B, Hind-leg of worker ; c, Thigh (femur); b, Shank (tibia) ; a, First tarsal joint. C, Egg (much enlarged). D, 

 Larva and pupa (nat. size). E, Longitudinal section of the abdomen of a worker ; 1, Honey-crop ; 2, Egg-sac ; 

 3, Poison-sac ; 4, Oil-gland ; 5, Semen-sac or spermatheca ; 6, Sting ; c, Segmental interstices, whence the wax 

 issues. F, Mouth-parts ; a, Maxillae ; d, Basal joint of same ; b, Labial palpi ; c, Tongue. G, Bee-louse and 

 its pupa (much enlarged). H, Brush (much enlarged). J, Poison-apparatus ; a, Poison-gland ; b, Poison- 

 vesicle ; c, Sting-groove ; a, Sting ; e, Sting-sheath. (All much enlarged.) 



vacant spaces between. The greater the number of the cells the stronger the 

 colour, the stronger the colour the more numerous the swarms and the greater the 

 chance of the perpetuation of the race. The intermediate form between the cylinder 

 and the regular hexagon is found in the comb of the Melipona bee, which forms 

 cylindrical cells, but so close together that the partition-wall becomes a flat-plate, 

 since it is impossible for a thin sheet to be concave on both sides at once ; modifi- 

 cations from this form combined with modified instincts would eventually produce 

 a regular hexagon. It is to be borne in mind, however, that this form arises not 

 because the bees are aware that a regular hexagon is the most economic form of 

 cell they can adopt, but simply because, when a group of bees stand close to each 

 other, and form cells of pliant wax, — whose walls break through at all points on 

 account of their proximity, rendering it necessary to build up a flat wall between, — 

 they cannot fashion it in any other way. For at all points of a single cell, six bees 



