NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY BEE. 3 



consider the most highly coloured as the typical form ; 

 and it is possibly more correct to give the precedence to 

 Apis LigusHca, but it cannot be decided satisfactorily until 

 we know in what country the Hive Bee really originated. 



Physiologically I can detect no difference between 

 Ligurians and Black Bees. Individuals vary in size as 

 well as in colour; but, on dissecting a number of each 

 variety, the difference is nil, and no microscopist could 

 separate a series of any given organs of both, if mixed 

 indiscriminately. Some observers have asserted that the 

 tongue of the Ligurian Bee is considerably longer than 

 our British native Bee, by which means it is enabled to 

 reach the nectar in the red clover, which its ally cannot 

 do; but I have carefully measured with the micrometer a 

 great many of both varieties, and I do not find more than 

 the one hundredth of an inch difference in favour of the 

 Ligurian, so small a difference being probably attribut- 

 able to mere accident of breeding. 



The leading feature in the natural history of Bees, and 

 one which distinguishes them from almost all other 

 insects, is their singular distribution into three different 

 kinds, constituting to all appearance so many different 

 modifications of sex. 



A hive of Bees in June consists of a Queen, Workers, 

 and Drones. 



Worker. 

 Fig. I. 



Drone. 

 Fig. 3- 



The first (in abnormal circumstances), and at certain 



B 2 



