202 ANIMAL LIFE 



of warm countries, therefore less familiar and less 

 accurately known bees than the cosmopolitan Apis 

 incllifica or honey-bee. 



The tropical bees, or Meliponas, that to some extent 

 bridge over the gap between the bumble-bee and the 

 honey-bee, are amongst the smallest of their kind, and 

 hence are called mosquito-bees. They associate in vast 

 colonies, and build nests in hollow trees, in the soil, in 

 walls, or among branches. The structure of the nest is 

 a considerable advance on that of bumble-bees. The 

 cells are cylindrical, sometimes irregularly, sometimes 

 regularly arranged, oppositely or spirally in tiers, one 

 above the other. The special pots for honey, and 

 jars for pollen, are still more striking than in the 

 bumble-bees ; and in order to guard them a special 

 conical cap of resinous wax or propolis is constructed, 

 open by day but closed at night, and under cover of 

 this cap a guard is steadily maintained. In some of 

 these nests the cells are all alike, in others the royal 

 cells are easily distinguishable ; but by what cunning 

 nutrition the queens are fed we are not as yet aware. 



The caste organisation of these colonics is largely 

 that of the honey-bee. There is only one reigning 

 queen to each colony. The workers are now no 

 longer potential queens, as in the bumble-bees, but 

 are devoted exclusively to building, storing, nourishing 

 and ventilating services, whilst the queen has entirely 

 renounced active life and merely fills the prepared cells 

 with eggs. The drones, however, are not such wasteful 

 parasites as those of the honey-bee, but secrete wax 



