HIVE-BEES. 91 



M. Reaumur to be distinguished as workers or 

 neuters, constituting the bulk of the population; 

 drones or males, the least numerous class; and a sin- 

 gle female, the queen and mother of the colony. Schi- 

 rach subsequently discovered the very extraordinary 

 fact, which Huber and others have proved beyond 

 doubt, that when a hive is accidentalty deprived of a 

 queen, the grub of a worker can be and is fed in 

 a particular manner, so as to become a queen and 

 supply the loss.* But another discovery of M. Hu- 

 ber is of more importance to the subject of archi- 

 tecture now before us. By minute research he ascer- 

 tained, that the workers, which had been considered 

 by former naturalists to be all alike, are divided 

 into two important classes, nurse-bees and wax- 

 makers. 



The nurse-bees are rather smaller than the wax- 

 workers, and even when gorged with honey their 

 belly does not, as in the others, appear distended. 

 Their business is to collect honey, and impart it to 

 their companions; to feed and take care of the young 

 grubs, and to complete the combs and cells which 

 have been founded by the others; but they are not 

 charged with provisioning the hive. 



The wax^worhers on the other hand are not only 

 a little larger, but their stomach, when gorged with 

 honey, is capable of considerable distension, as M. 

 Huber proved by repeated experiments. He also 

 ascertained that neither of the species can alone 

 fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of 

 a hive. He painted those of each class with different 

 colours, in order to study their proceedings, and their 

 labours were not interchanged. In another experi- 



* It is right to remark that Huish and others have suggested 

 that the grubs thus royalized may originally Ije misplaced queens; 

 yet this admission is not necessary, since Madlle. Jurine has 

 proved, by dissection, tlie workers to be imperfect females. 



