HYMENOPTERA. 



37 



Similarly, no doubt, the colours of flowers have a greater or smaller degree of 

 attraction for these insects. Indeed, it is beyond question that the fertilisation of 

 flowers by the visitation of bees has tended to the development of the special 

 colours patronised by the insects, while blossoms which were of less favourite hues 

 have gradually disappeared. Black, white, and green flowers are not so common as 

 yellow, orange, blue, or red ; and black is less prevalent than either of the others. 

 Although experiments to prove or disprove the sensibility of bees to sound have so 

 far been negative, yet from the fact that they are exceedingly sensitive to a certain 

 peculiar cry occasionally emitted by the queen, which acts like an electric shock, it 

 would appear that hearing is likewise well developed. That bees and wasps are 

 able to find their way, and to fly off apparently without hesitation straight for 

 home, needs no proof. But this power does not necessarily indicate some mysterious 

 sense of direction, enabling them to perceive their bearings by occult means. 

 Rather may it be looked upon as due to the ordinary observance of conspicuous 

 landmarks, such as are utilised for guidance even by man himself. Bees, for 

 instance, have been taught the way to a store of honey by the repetition of single 

 experiences, proving that they pass from the unaccustomed to the well-known, 

 little by little. Naturally, the direction of a point to which whithersoever they 

 may wander out, they must invariably return many times a day, soon passes from 

 the sphere of calculation and enters the region of simple intuition ; so rapid and 

 unconscious are the various acts of perception involved. That these insects do 

 thus take note of landmarks has been shown by Bates, who describes how a sand- 

 wasp carefully marked the spot where half of a larva had been left by circling 

 round and alighting in the vicinity. And even then, when it returned, though it 

 flew many times straight to a certain conspicuous leaf close above the booty, 

 doubtless a landmark yet it could not for a long while — and after repeated pounces 

 in the wrong direction, and more it seemed by good luck at last — succeed in finding 

 it. No one who has heard the cry of an angry wasp, and experienced the pain 

 which has followed, will doubt that anger and malice have their places in the 

 wasp's nature. Often do these insects seem to make straight for an innocent 

 bystander, and sting from pure spitefulness. Sympathy for the ailing and 

 wounded, as amongst the ants, so amongst the bees, seems to be more noticeable 

 than it is towards those actually in distress,— though uninjured. It has been 

 doubted, indeed, whether bees show any affection for one another ; the caressing 

 antennas, as well as the personal attentions to each other so noticeable in the case of 

 ants, are certainly lacking. As in ants, however, the antennae seem to be the chief 

 organs of communication. 



As regards habits, there are two chief operations in which bees and wasps 

 engage, namely, the procuring of food and the rearing of a progeny. This food is 

 of two kinds— honey gathered from the nectaries of flowers, and bee-hread, or 

 flower-pollen moistened with honey, kneaded by the workers, and stored away, for 

 feeding the larvae. The workers, or honey-gatherers, do not bring ... more than 

 one sort of pollen at the same time : and when the nurses, or domestic bees, receive 

 the pollen from the honey-gatherers they keep it carefully separate. '1 he sort of 

 pollen is more nutritious than another, and a female larva fed on the more nutri- 

 tious bee-bread will become a queen or fertile female, and one hive cannot afford 



