624 Nature and Habits of the common Wasp. 



at this period, perhaps they are fed by the workers, as they feed 

 one another in the nest. A writer says that the drones take an 

 active part in the colony, and for this reason they are not de- 

 stroyed by the workers like the drone bees. This is not at all 

 clear, for the grand business of the colony is drawing to a close 

 when they appear. As the nest contains no store, the charge of 

 eating and not adding to it cannot be laid to them. In truth, 

 what use would it be for the workers to slaughter the drones, 

 when they themselves are about to quit the nest, leaving both 

 them and the females to their fate ? After they have met to 

 secure a future increase the drones perish, and, luckily, many of 

 the queens also. What of the latter survive the winter in a 

 torpid state amongst dry moss, &c, appear in spring to commence 

 fresh colonies. 



At first each is an insulated being, and begins the nest as 

 already stated. As soon as the cells are partly finished, an 

 egg is deposited in each, sometimes, but very rarely, two, not 

 at the bottom, as in bees' cells, but on one side a little above it, 

 to give room for the excrements from the insects, which are of a 

 dark substance, and the only store 9 if I may say so, found in a 

 wasps' nest. In about four days the eggs are hatched, and the 

 brood are fed by the queen. While in the grub state they are 

 very voracious; after they spin the cocoon they cease to eat. In 

 about two or three weeks they cut through their cocoons and 

 come forth perfect wasps. After this the queen does not go 

 abroad ; her sole occupation seems depositing the eggs ; indeed 

 she gets too heavy to fly. A writer tells us that the brood are 

 " educated by the queen before they can assist her in her great 

 design." Though really curious to hear of the education of in- 

 sects, I reply to it, I have seen wasps without a queen emerge 

 from their cells, and instantly feed the starving brood. Who 

 taught the queen to raise so interesting a structure after lying 

 four months torpid? Saying more is useless. The queen is 

 soon surrounded by numerous workers plundering every where; 

 some say three thousand, but this is stretching. Though in the 

 first-formed cells there may be reared three successive broods 

 during the season, there cannot be above one in the last-formed 

 combs, which are the drones and queens. There appears no 

 foundation for Perrot's belief that the eggs to produce the former 

 are laid by smaller queens. Where can they meet with males 

 to make them fruitful? Indeed the fact that both appear at one 

 time is enough to upset it. I question if the young queens 

 deposit eggs until the following season ; but, if an accident 

 happen to the old one, the case may be altered. I am led to 

 think so by having once taken the old queen from a nest of 

 hornets. In two weeks after there were fresh eggs in several 

 cells ; the nest contained several hundred young queens. That 

 young queen bees deposit eggs is no criterion, for their colony 



