388 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



them at the same time to lay eggs, and to construct the cells in which they 

 are to be deposited. • 



I have told you above, that amongst the wasps a small kind of female 

 has been discovered : this is the case also amongst the humble-bees, in 

 whose societies they are more readily detected ; not, indeed, by any 

 observable difference between them and the workers, but chiefly by the 

 diversity of their instincts : — from the other females they are distinguished 

 solely by their diminutive size. Like those of the wasps and hive-bees, 

 these minor queens produce only male eggs, which come out in time to 

 fertilize the young females that found the vernal colonies. M. P. Huber 

 suspects that, as in the case of the female bee, it is a different kind of 

 food that develops their ovaries, and so distinguishes them from the 

 workers. They are generally attended by a small number of males, who 

 form their court. 



M. Huber, watching at midnight the proceedings of a nest which he 

 kept under a glass, observed the inhabitants to be in a stale of great agi- 

 tation ; many of these bees were engaged in making a cell ; the queen- 

 mother of the colony, as she may be called, who is always extremely 

 jealous of her pigmy rivals, came and drove them away from the cell ; — 

 she in her turn was driven away by the others, which pursued her, beating 

 their wings with the utmost fury, to the bottom of the nest. The cell 

 was then constructed, and two of them at the same time oviposited in it. 

 The queen returned to the charge, exhibiting similar signs of anger ; and, 

 chasing them away again, put her head into the cell, when, seizing the 

 eggs that had been laid, she was observed to devour them with great 

 avidity. The same scene was again renewed, waih the same issue. After 

 this, one of the small females returned and covered the empty cells with 

 wax. When the mother-queen was removed, several of the small females 

 contended for the cell with indescribable rage, all endeavoring to lay their 

 eggs in it at the same time. These small females perish in the autumn. 



The males are usually smaller than the large females, and larger than 

 the small ones and workers. They may be known by their longer, more 

 filiform, and slenderer antennae ; by the difierent shape and by the beard 

 of their mandibles. Tiieir posterior tibiae also want the corbicula and 

 pectcn that distinguish the individuals of the other sex, and their posterior 

 plantae have no auricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble- 

 bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the rest to repair any 

 damajre or derangement that may befal the common habitation.^ 



The workers, which are the first fruits of the queen-mother's vernal 

 parturition, assist her, as soon as they are excluded from the pupa, in her 

 various labors. To them also is committed the construction of the waxen 

 vault that covei*s and defends the nest. WMien any individual larva has 



' It should be here observed that, besides the proper occupants of some humble-bees' 

 nests, ih^rc are occasionally met with in iliem individuals of another genus of the same 

 family, so closely resembling ihem as to be often confounded with them, which, being un- 

 provided wiih the usual polliniferous organs, are supposed to be. in their larva stale, parasitic 

 inhabitants of the nest. This genus, which includes Apis riipestris F. 6cc., has been named 

 Apn'hus by Mr. Newman, Psithyrus by M. de St. Fargeau, and Pseudo-Bomtus by Mr. Ste- 

 phens. In like manner, the exotic genus Chnjsnnthi'da is supposed lo be parasitic on the 

 metallic EusJossa {Hist. of Ins. by Swamson and Shuckard, 169. Weslwood's Mod. Clast. 

 of I/is.,'u. 281.) f 



