THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



INSECTS, SPIDERS, WORMS, &c. 



BY OSWALD H. LATTER, M.A.OxoN. 

 Senior Science Master of Charterhouse School 



CHAPTER I 

 BEES 



OVER two hundred species of bees are found in this country. 

 The lower members of the group do not surpass the social wasps 

 in the complexity of their structure, and fall distinctly below 

 them in matters of domestic economy. The females construct 

 simple tubular nests in the earth, or in walls or stems of plants, 

 and in these they rear a few young, which are nourished on the 

 pollen and nectar of flowers, but never upon animal food. Each 

 female is entirely responsible for her own house and offspring ; 

 there are no " workers " (sterile females), but simply fertile 

 females and males. In habits they vary greatly ; some merely 

 excavate burrows in the soil, others construct their nests of 

 mud, of woolly fibres, or of pieces neatly cut from leaves of rose 

 trees, sallows, privet and other plants, employing wall crevices, 

 door-locks, spaces beneath roof-slates or tiles, or holes in the 

 earth or in trees as safe hiding-places for their young. Others 

 again build no nest, but cuckoo-like deposit their eggs in the 

 nests formed by other species. 



On the other hand, the higher bees, such as the humble-bees, 

 and especially the honey-bee, exhibit extensive modifications 

 of the structure of the mouth parts and legs in accordance with 



VOL. II. I 



