502 Mr. F. Smith's Descriptions of 



probably a parasite, but not a single living wasp ; this nest was 

 found to contain honey in some of the cells in the centre of the 

 upper combs ; and, as in the case of those above mentioned, the 

 honey was penetrating from layer to layer ; but in no part of the 

 nest was there any brood ; the number of combs was fourteen, 

 the diameter of the largest being at least fourteen inches; what the 

 number of cells might be, would require a considerable amount of 

 calculation to ascertain, — of course many, many thousands; and yet 

 this nest did not appear to have been recently in use for the purpose 

 of rearing brood ; was it then a deserted nest 1 and did the wasps 

 really store up the honey it contained ? Wasps are well known 

 to plunder the hives of honey bees, and is it not possible that this 

 apparently deserted nest was used merely as a magazine, for the 

 plunder of some nest of a Melipona or Trigona. 



If it is a fact that some species of wasp store honey, it appears 

 only reasonable to expect that the combs would be constructed 

 of a material adapted for containing it; and if storing honey 

 formed a part of the economy of the species, I should conclude 

 it would also form the support of the young brood, as well as of 

 the community at large ; but, as stated above, I have never 

 found young brood in any wasp's nest that contained honey, but 

 I have never failed to do so in combs of the honey-collecting 

 bees. It has been suggested, as possible, that species of Trigona 

 may sometimes take possession of deserted wasp-nests; this I do 

 not think probable, the nests are not adapted to their purposes ; 

 the cells are much too large for their brood, at least in all the 

 nests I have examined, and honey is always stored in waxen cells 

 by the bees. 



When a wasps' nest is discovered, in which the combs are con- 

 structed of a material adapted for containing honey, and in which 

 young brood is also found, showing this habit to form a part of 

 the usual economy of the species, then we shall have some legiti- 

 mate grounds for believing in the existence of certain species of 

 wasps being, in the true signification of the term, honey col- 

 lectors. At present, it appears to me, that we only know as a 

 fact, that certain wasp-nests occasionally contain honey, sup- 

 posed to have been stored by the wasps themselves ; they, in the 

 first place, not having constructed their cells of a material adapted 

 for containing it. The nests oi Nectarina analis, and also of A^. 

 Lecheguana and of N. mellifica, are all constructed of papyra- 

 ceous materials, but of a somewhat firmer texture than those of 

 Polybia. All the species of Nectarina are said to be honey col- 

 lectors ; if such be the case, may it not be possible that it is 



