Stingless Bees. 27 



ttiis, all during tlieir babyhood — the larva state— the time 

 ■when all insects are most ravenous, and the only time when 

 many insects take food, the time when all growth in size, ex- 

 cept such enlargement as is required by egg-development, oc- 

 curs, these infant bees have to be fed by their mothers or elder 

 sisters. They have a mouth with soft lips, and weak jaws, 

 yet it is dovibtful if all or much of their food is taken in at 

 this opening. There is some reason to believe that they, like 

 many maggots — such as the Hessian-fly larvffi — absorb much 

 of their food through the body walls. From the mouth leads 

 the intestine, which has no anal opening. So there are no ex- 

 creta other than gas and vapor. What commendation for 

 their food, all capable of nourishment, and thus all assimi- 

 lated ! 



To this family belongs the genus of stingless bees, Melipona, 

 of Mexico and South America, which store honey not only in 

 the hexagonal brood-cells but in great wax reservoirs. They, 

 like the unkept hive-bee, build in hoUow logs. They are ex- 

 ceedingly numerous in each colony, and it has thus been 

 thought that there was more than one queen. They are also 

 very prodigal of wax, and thus may possess a prospective com- 

 mercial importance in these days of artificial comb-foundation. 

 In this genus the basal joint of the tarsus is triangular, and 

 they have two submarginal cells, not three, to the front wings. 

 They are also smaller than our common bees, and have wings 

 that do not reach the tip of their abdomens. 



Another genus of stingless bees, the genus Trigona, have 

 the wings longer than the abdomens, and their jaws toothed. 

 These, unlike the Melipona, are not confined to the New 

 World, but are met with in Africa, India, and Australasia. 

 These build their combs in tall trees, fastening them to the 

 branches much as does the Apis dorsata, soon to be mentioned. 



Of course insects of the genus Bombus — our common 

 bumble-bees — belong to this family. Here the tongue is very 

 long, the bee large, and the sting curved, with the barbs very short 

 and few. Only the queen survives the winter. In spring she 

 forms her nest under some sod or board, hollowing out a basin 

 in the earth, and after storing a mass of bee-bread — probably 

 a mixture of honey and pollen — she deposits several eggs in 

 the mass. The larvse, as soon as hatched out, eat out thimble- 

 shaped spaces, which in time become even larger, and not un- 



