270 
INSECTA, 
verses the interior of the thorax, and thence passes to the an- 
terior stomach, or rather crop, which contains the honey. The 
following stomach, according to Reaumur, contains the pollen 
or wax-like matter, and has its surface marked by annular and 
transverse ruge, in the manner of hoops. ‘This abdominal ca- 
vity in the females contains two large ovaries composed of nu- 
merous sacculi, each of which encloses from sixteen to seventeen 
eggs. Each ovary terminates at the anus, near which it dilates 
into a pouch, where the egg is arrested, and receives a viscid 
humour furnished by a neighbouring gland. According to the 
observations of Huber, Jun., the inferior semi-annuli of the abdo- 
men of the labourers, the first and last excepted, have each, on 
their internal surface, two pouches, in which the wax is secreted 
and moulded into lamine, that afterwards ooze out through the 
intervals between the rings. Under these pouches is a particu- 
lar membrane, formed of a very small network, with hexagonal 
meshes, that unites to the lining membrane of the abdominal 
cavity. 
These observations on the internal anatomy of the Bee, with 
the exception of some few modifications, will apply to ‘the Bombi 
properly so called*. Wax, according to the experiments of the 
same naturalist, is nothing more than elaborated honey, and the 
pollen mixed with a little of that substance only serves as food 
for these Insects and their larvee. 
M. Huber distinguishes two kinds of labourers or working 
‘Bees. The first, which he calls ciriéres, collect provisions and 
all the materials requisite for building, and employ the same. 
The second, or the nowrrices (nurses), smaller and weaker, are 
formed for retirement, and their functions are almost reduced 
to the rearing of the young, and the internal economy of the hive. 
We have seen that the labourers or working bees resemble 
the females in several particulars. Certain curious experiments 
have proved that they are of one sex, and that they may become 
mothers, if, when in their state of larve and three days after 
they are hatched, they receive a peculiar kind of aliment, or that 
which is given to the queen-larve. But even then they can only 
acquire all the faculties of the latter by being placed in a larger 
cell, or one similar to that of the larvee of the female proper, the 
royal cell, If fed in this way in their own cell, they can only 
produce males, and differ from the females proper by being 
smaller. The labourers, then, are merely females whose ovaries 
have not been developed, in consequence of the nature of the 
food given to them while in the state of larve. 
The substance of which their combs are composed, being ill 
adapted to resist the effects of the weather, and as they do not 
construct a nest or general envelope, these Insects can only 
establish their colonies in cavities where their work finds a na- 
tural shelter. The labourers, which are alone charged with the 
work, form those lamin composed of two opposing rows of 
* T have also verified this fact. See my Memoir on this subject in the Ann, du 
Mus. 
d’Hist. Nat. - 
