7o8 



The Living Animals of the World 



The ancients had observed something of the economy of bees, but many of their ideas 

 on the subject were strangely fantastic. It was perhaps natural to suppose that the leader of 

 the bees was a king rather than a queen ; but it was also supposed that a swarm of bees 

 could be obtained by killing an ox and leaving the carcase to rot. This notion appears to 

 have originated in swarms of flies, more or less resembling bees, having been noticed flying 

 round or near putrefying carcases. 



Among all the truly social insects— i.e. hive-bees, wasps, ants, and termites, or so-called 

 white ants— we find that the bulk of the community consists of sterile females, and the number 

 of fertile females is very small, even in those cases where more than one female is permitted 

 to live in a nest, as among wasps. 



Hdmble-bees live in small communities, consisting of males, females, and workers; but 



Photo bij C. Had] 



IWisltaic, X.ll. 



BEES. 

 iSwaiming from the hive .after the queen. 



their economy is very simjjle compared with that of the hive-bee, and they do not confine 

 themselves to a single female to a nest. 



The SoLiTAKY Bees are very numerous in species, and consist only of males and females. 

 They do not live in communities, but each female constructs a dwelling for her own 

 young, ilany of them burrow in the ground, and they are so far gregarious that a large 

 number of females will sometimes form their burrows near each other in the same bank. 

 There are about two hundred different kinds of bees known to inhabit the British Isles. 

 The solitai-y bees are \'ery varied in their habits, and some of them are parasitic on 

 other species. 



The large Carpenter-bees, which form their nests in wood, are not British ; but there are 

 some small British species which make theirs in the interior of bramble-sticks. Some are very 

 hairy ; others are smooth, and look at first sight like small wasps, being banded with black 

 and yellow. But one of the handsomest and most conspicuous of the solitary species is the 

 Fulvous Bee, which is a hairy species much resembling a small humble-bee, and is one 

 often seen in abundance along with other bees, flying round sallow blossoms in spring. 



