GENERAL HABITS OF THE BEES. 159 



ticipate in these instincts^ and are equally fitted for a 

 similar subjugation. This opinion would be erroneous, 

 for it is among the social bees only that we find those 

 thus serviceable; and, although a few other genera of 

 bees are also social, we are not aware that any have 

 been domesticated like our common hive bee, or its 

 congeners, although the nests of the other social species 

 are constantly plundered by the natives and inhabitants 

 of the countries wheie they are found. The large ma- 

 jority of bees are, indeed, solitary in their habits, form- 

 ing either cylindrical burrows in a variety of substances 

 according to the species, or a cluster of small oval cells, 

 placed usually within a cavity, either found or formed 

 by the insect ; and these cells are constructed sometimes 

 of small particles of earth, or of a moulded clay.* 

 They then deposit within them a store of food, con- 

 sisting of a paste, formed by a mixture of pollen and 

 honey, to serve as provision for the young. Having 

 laid up this magazine, in the due proportions of which 

 the mother insect is guided by an unerring instinct, 

 she then deposits her egg upon it, and encloses an 

 adequate space for the developement of her larva, and 

 of its transformation. As we observed above, the 

 several genera and species select different substances, 

 wherein they nidificate ; and they also follow diiferent 

 modes in the occupation of these burrows, for some 

 line them with various substances, and others occupy 

 them bare as they occur, but perfectly smooth within. 

 Some, also, make them suit a succession of cells ; and 

 others deposit but one egg, and food but for one young 

 one, in each; but we shall have further opportunity 

 below to notice these different habitations, wherever 

 they present any remarkable peculiarity of structure. 

 These insects themselves are frequently very hairy, 

 although many are completely smooth ; and they are 



* An exotic genus, closely allied to Osmia, appears to form its cells of a 

 rude kind of wax. This is a reiiiarkatile iiistaiice of any but a social bee 

 using wax. We should not, however, thence infer, that, as in the other 

 cases, it was a secretion of the insi'<:t, but possibly a vegetable production, 

 or perhaps the result of plunder from one of the social kinds. 



